"Where is your courage? Weren't you going to raise your blade against Me?!"
The Emperor looked at Angron's hateful face, still not done venting His fury, and pinned him down for another savage flurry of backhands.
Blazing arcs of golden lightning nearly swallowed the entire area around them. It was a brutal combination of psychic force and raw physical punishment.
And those psychic slaps were coming at a rate of three per millisecond. Even elite warriors could do no more than glimpse the afterimages.
A beating of that magnitude was fiercer than any weapon. Even a Chaos daemon-body could barely endure it.
Everyone could hear the muffled howls of agony coming from inside.
Under the Emperor's relentless psychic beating, Angron was slapped half senseless. Even the giant axe in his hand clanged to the ground, and with it went any courage he had left to attack.
The Red Angel, the broken berserker, went from a beast of pure rage to a tiny quail belt-whipped into complete silence.
His eyes grew clearer and clearer. He shrank into a corner of the veil, clutching his swollen face, not even daring to make a sound.
"Stand up straight!"
The Emperor barked at Angron again, then strode past him toward Horus and the other fallen Primarchs.
He did not have much anger left for this mad son. At this point, Angron was little more than a shred of a soul, without even the most basic independent will.
The Master of Mankind paid him no further attention and kept walking forward with His back turned to him.
And the Red Angel, the broken one, stared at that retreating figure without daring the slightest sneak attack.
"Horus..." The Emperor fixed His gaze on the black, twisted daemonic shadow ahead, fury blazing uncontrollably in His eyes.
He had once trusted this son so deeply, only to be repaid with merciless betrayal that nearly destroyed humanity's great work of uniting the stars.
And now that rebellious, fallen, venomous son had returned under the manipulation of the Chaos Gods, seeking to truly put the Master of Mankind to death.
Unforgivable.
As the Emperor's golden form drew closer, His terrifying presence pressed down harder and harder on Horus and the other fallen Primarchs.
They all felt the heat in the air. They all felt the crushing pressure.
The False Emperor, their father, was so powerful that He could come and go freely even within the domain of the Chaos Gods.
That only deepened the dread in the fallen Primarchs. Old memories of that tyrant rose again in their minds.
"Father, your age has passed.
Now you are nothing but a withered skeleton. Why keep clinging to the throne, clinging to that power and authority?"
Horus stared at the Emperor, father of the Primarchs, and said:
"Give humanity to me. I will make them stronger. I will forge them into a new form of life.
I will inherit your ideal and lead this new humanity onward in its expansion. Not merely across the galaxy, but into still more regions of the universe."
Even in the face of the Master of Mankind, this Dark Emperor did not retreat. Instead, he tightened his grip on his weapon.
He firmly believed that humanity would one day belong to him, the Dark Emperor, and that only he could free mankind from the fate of being eroded by the Warp.
Humanity would fully embrace the Warp and gain a new power.
"Humanity already has its Savior. He will lead mankind into a new age. After Me, he is humanity's one true ruler."
The Emperor shook His head. Deep disappointment and disgust filled His face.
"Horus, my son, I regret creating a twisted life like you. You inherited none of My virtues. Instead, you became something so utterly vile.
That was My mistake, and I will end that mistake with My own hands."
"Mistake?
Everything I am came from you. I am better than you, not some pathetic failure!"
Horus' voice grew more vicious.
"False Emperor, who exactly do you think that blustering pose is for? You think you can still suppress us?
Today, all of this ends once and for all!"
As this Dark Emperor traded words with the Emperor, he was also desperately drawing on the power of Chaos. The authority of the Chaos Gods churned within him.
Black fire ignited across his daemon-body, while countless soul-shadows wailed behind him, contending with the Emperor's holy psychic might.
"You cannot leave the Throne for long, False Emperor. Your strength is fading. You are already at the end of your rope."
Battle-lust burned in Horus' eyes as he prepared to unleash the final war.
The Emperor may have become stronger, but this was realspace, and this time Horus had more helpers.
There was no certainty they could not defeat this hypocritical tyrant in the material universe.
Ten thousand years ago he had grievously wounded the False Emperor once. This time, he would tear that rotting skeleton apart for good.
Crackle.
"My brothers, destroy Him with me!"
Horus ignited the field around Worldbreaker and assumed a battle stance full of dreadful force.
Yet the moment he declared war on the Emperor, he suddenly realized that everyone beside him had fallen silent.
???
The Dark Emperor turned his head and instantly went numb.
Damn it.
Mortarion and the other fallen Primarchs had somehow slipped away from his side without him noticing and retreated several meters.
He was the only one left standing there, facing the Emperor alone, that giant golden brute.
His brothers had all backed off?
Horus suddenly felt a little cold, especially now that he was alone in front of the Emperor, the Anathema.
Mortarion and the others even shot him encouraging looks, wearing the exact expression of men thinking: better you than me.
They could hardly be blamed. Whether it was Mortarion, Magnus, or Fulgrim, they had all already been belt-whipped by the Emperor once before. Deep in their hearts, the trauma was still there.
They might have been willing to face the sleeping Emperor, but now that the Master of Mankind, the False Emperor, was standing right in front of them, none of them dared meet Him head-on.
Waiting for the Chaos artifact to activate was probably the wiser choice.
Bang!
Horus drew a deep breath and was about to speak when he sensed danger rushing toward him, lethal in the extreme.
The Emperor had already swung His golden blade in a rage.
Horus hastily brought up Worldbreaker to block it. The force behind the blow hammered down, showering sparks in every direction.
Their weapons clashed again and again in such rapid succession that only dense afterimages remained, while terrifying shockwaves spread outward without end.
Those violent ripples even tore open the surrounding veil, letting the glare of the battle-fire outside leak through.
At the same time, the Dark Emperor's warp-corruption and the Emperor's sacred psychic force entwined and battled on another plane, churning the Chaos void.
By then, Mortarion and the other fallen Primarchs had retreated even farther. Some had already turned and fled deeper into the dark fissure.
"Damn it!"
Horus spat out hateful flame, but the Emperor broke straight through it. The force of the next blow sent him flying.
Several blackened wounds appeared across his body, where the Anathema's power gnawed relentlessly at his daemon-flesh.
"This can't go on!"
The Dark Emperor made his decision. After feinting once, he turned and ran deeper into the dark fissure as well.
He had decided on a tactical withdrawal.
Trading blows head-on with the Emperor now was not worth it. Even if he managed to bring Him down, Horus himself might die just as he had ten thousand years ago.
He might fall into even deeper slumber, or even perish completely.
He could already feel the pressure radiating from the Emperor's skeletal body growing heavier, while that sacred psychic power was starting to wane.
He intended to drag things out, to stall until the False Emperor exhausted Himself and was forced back onto the Throne.
That was the best strategy.
Seeing Horus and the other fallen Primarchs flee, the Emperor cut down two Greater Daemons that blocked His path and pursued those traitorous sons.
Only one great blasphemer survived by sheer luck, curled up with his head covered and his backside stuck in the air, trembling all over.
"If only we could get the old man out for a proper stretch more often, the Imperium would've taken off long ago."
From atop the Golden Throne, Eden watched the scene and sighed in admiration.
The Master of Mankind really was the ultimate hunter of Chaos, an unstoppable warrior of terrifying might.
He had been fighting this long, yet there was not the slightest trace of fatigue on Him.
"I just hope the old man can kill a few more Greater Daemons. Best... best if he kills Horus too..."
As Eden spoke, his body could not stop twitching, and even his thoughts were becoming chaotic.
He was having a rough time on his end too. He had no idea how much longer he could hold out.
"Run. You failures, worth less than the used culture fluid in My laboratory, where exactly do you think you're going?"
"Horus, your so-called ambition is nothing more than a slave ripping off his shackles only to rush into putting on a heavier set!"
"You really love licking the gods' ass-cracks that much?!"
"Dark Emperor? Coming from your mouth, that title sounds like a grot trying to imitate human speech!"
The Emperor pursued Horus and the other fallen Primarchs with His golden blade, battering them bloody and sending them scattering in panic.
The Greater Daemons fleeing along with them were smashed apart one after another and reduced to ash.
The Master of Mankind, by His power alone, drove every Chaos entity trying to force its way into the Imperial Palace into shrieking retreat.
"Damn it, there's nowhere left to run!"
Horus and the others reached the end of one branch of the dark fissure, with no room left to keep evading.
That meant they would have to face the False Emperor head-on and weather the Anathema's psychic wrath.
Yet just as Horus and the others turned to make their stand, they saw the Emperor's golden armor beginning to melt away.
Little by little, it exposed the damaged skeleton within.
"Has the Chaos artifact already enveloped Terra? Is the False Emperor's power being suppressed?!"
At the sight, Horus and the other fallen Primarchs were immediately thrilled. This was their chance.
Their fear vanished, and they turned at once, closing in around Him.
"What a pity..."
The Emperor looked deeply at Horus and the other rebellious, fallen Primarchs, something unreadable flickering through His eyes.
Then some kind of cable yanked at His skeleton with violent force, and He vanished from the dark fissure.
The Master of Mankind could no longer maintain His activity in realspace and had reverted to His original state.
The vast machinery of the Golden Throne exerted a tremendous pull, dragging Him back onto the Throne once more.
As always, the Emperor's body and soul were bound again. That suppressed exhaustion returned in full.
His consciousness grew muddled. Even His vision blurred.
"Savior?"
Before slipping back into slumber, the Emperor looked toward the Savior and saw that the clone body had somehow already withered dry.
Its entire form was twisted into a look of agony.
The Savior's clone body had been drained of all life by the Golden Throne, and even his soul had begun to suffer from it.
He could no longer continue and had no choice but to disengage from the Throne, that cruel instrument of torment.
That was also what caused the Emperor to be pulled out of the dark fissure and dragged back to the Throne to endure this ten-thousand-year torture once more.
"Sorry, old man. I'm burned out."
A faint psychic echo seemed to linger over Eden's dried-up clone body.
There was no helping it. Using the clone body to hold out for this long had already been his limit.
If he kept going, his soul itself might have become bound by the Throne, unable to break free.
And that would have utterly collapsed the Imperium's situation.
"You brat."
A faint smile touched the Emperor's spectral lips.
"I leave the rest to you. Set all of this right..."
He believed the Savior could defeat Horus and lead humanity to victory again, just as before.
Soon, the Master of Mankind sank back into slumber. The tall, desiccated skeleton upon the Throne sat motionless, as though nothing had happened.
Only the many wounds carved into the bones and the wreckage of daemon-corpses outside the Throne Room testified to the ferocious battle that had just taken place.
...
Within the Warp.
"Ha, the Anathema has been bound again!"
"What a marvelous turn. Fate has returned to its proper course."
Only after seeing the Emperor leave the dark fissure did the Chaos Gods finally breathe easier.
His intrusion had been deeply troublesome, and they had found it difficult to drive Him out of the fissure.
Fortunately, He had now fallen back into slumber. This was a once-in-history chance for Chaos to suppress Him.
"Destroy the Throne. Let the Shadowlight completely engulf the Anathema.
Lock Him in place. Banish Him forever!"
The Chaos Gods hurriedly urged Horus and the other fallen Primarchs forward, commanding them to carry out the plan they had prepared.
"Hurry!"
Horus raced ahead with a twisted face, the other fallen Primarchs also surging forward at full speed.
It was the fastest they had moved in a long, long time, and none of them could have been more eager.
After what had just happened, not one of them wanted to face the False Emperor, their father, ever again. They had to seize this chance and seal Him away forever.
Now there was no one left who could stop the invasion through the dark fissure, and the Throne Hall had also lost all its defenders.
It was more open and vulnerable than it had ever been. The dark fissure had even extended into the Throne Room itself, reaching all the way before the Golden Throne.
If they still could not destroy the Throne and the False Emperor's skeletal remains under these circumstances, it would be a humiliation beyond all humiliation.
"Father, go in peace. This age no longer belongs to you."
The Dark Emperor stared fixedly at the exit ahead, as though he could already see the outline of the Golden Throne.
The moment he and the other fallen Primarchs destroyed the Throne and the False Emperor's bones, the attack from the Chaos artifact on New Longlin would descend and suppress the False Emperor's power indiscriminately.
That would completely sever the Emperor's connection to realspace and seal Him inside a region of the Warp.
It was an eternal prison carefully prepared by the Chaos Gods for the False Emperor. There He would be confined, forgotten, and left to rot forever.
Horus was wildly excited.
That meant he could seize authority in the process of striking the Emperor down and step onto the path of power the False Emperor had monopolized for so long, winning himself a chance to ascend to a higher dimension.
Of course, the Chaos Gods would certainly guard against that, but he, the Dark Emperor, would endure to the very end.
He would not be like the False Emperor, so hypocritical that He clung to power while refusing godhood, and in doing so denied humanity the chance to claim the power of the Warp.
"Stop it!"
"No, the fissure has gone past our defensive line!"
"Where is the Savior? We need him to stop the fissure's advance!"
In the blurred image of the Throne Hall, Custodians surged in, trying to defend the Master of Mankind.
Yet the unnatural fissure passed straight through them and stretched all the way to the Golden Throne itself. Even the Sisters of Silence could not halt it.
It had already exceeded what they could endure.
Now no one could protect the great Emperor and the Throne anymore. Not even the Savior.
Many fell into despair.
"We're there."
Horus stared at the outline of the Throne. As he ran, he tightened his grip on Worldbreaker, hateful arcs of energy twisting around its field.
He was building up power.
Whoosh!
In an instant, darkness flashed across the Dark Emperor's vision. He and the fallen Primarchs burst through the exit of the dark fissure, passing straight through all the Custodians.
They emerged into realspace.
Crackle.
"False... Emperor!"
Horus leapt high and swung Worldbreaker down with all his might.
Clang!
The sound of metal shattering rang out, almost musical to his ears. The recoil alone made his whole body tremble.
But in the very next second, he froze.
???
Still locked in that mighty attack pose, Horus saw that Worldbreaker had smashed into a thick slab of alloy armor.
And through a nearby viewing port, he could see the stunned expressions of human soldiers staring back at him.
"Where's the Throne? Where the hell did I get dropped?!"
Horus frowned, utterly bewildered, disbelief written all over his face.
This did not seem to be the Throne Room at all.
It looked more like the deck of a human battleship hanging in space.
"Why are we here? Did the dark fissure's teleport go wrong?"
By then the other fallen Primarchs, who had also launched a chaotic volley of attacks, had gone just as numb and confused.
"No matter what, we have to get back to the Throne Room!"
Once Horus confirmed the situation, he quickly turned toward the void, preparing to use the dark fissure again to return to the Throne Room within Terra's Imperial Palace.
But when he looked toward the sun and the direction where Terra should have been, he found only empty space.
There was nothing there except one giant ball of fire.
"Oh no... Terra seems to be gone!"
Horus stared at the absurd sight, his face turning green, even his lips trembling.
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible!"
The other fallen Primarchs stood there in a daze as well.
Every single one of them was dumbstruck.
"No!"
In the Warp, inside the little black room.
Grandfather Nurgle, overwhelmed with rage and shock, coughed up a huge mouthful of pus, collapsed onto His rotten plank-bed, and went completely still.
(End of Chapter)
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