-Imperial Palace
The Gates of Eternity parted with a silent hiss.
Trajann led Nusa and Guilliman into the Hall of Ascendance.
Before them, the Stairs of the Throne rose like a mountain of black marble, polished to a mirror sheen. Statues of primarchs and heroes of the imperium flanked both sides.
Nusa notice some of the Primarch statue was missing or destroyed.
Custodes lined the stair, silent as statues, halberds at rest, eyes burning gold through their helms. None spoke. None moved.
Among the three, Guilliman is walking stiffly.
The primarch still remembers the crushing dissapointment his father has shown him in the last meeting.
Now he is not the lord of ultramar or genefather of the ultramarine legion.
He is now just a boy who is afraid to face his father.
'What have you done to him brother?'Nusa muttered as he frowns.
It doesn take long for the three superhuman to stand before the emperor of mankind.
A skinny old man sitting on the golden throne, tethered to cable for life support. The man on the throne looks as if he will die any moment.
Anyone looking will not believe the person would be the Emperor of Mankind.
Thus, the Imperium creates a false image of a skeleton for the Emperor.
Trajann and Guilliman kneels in reverence. Nusa stands, looking his brother with sadness and regret.
"My liege, I have brought all the persons you asks for."
Silent was the answer.
Trajann already understood this, he rise and leaves the throne room.
For a moment, the Master of mankind and the lord of machine looks at each other.
As Trajann leaves, Emperor speaks using his psychic might.
{Brother… Traitor… Creator… Forsaken… Hope… Calamity… Betrayer… Salvation…}
The Emperor's fractured mind lashed at them both, paradox stacked upon paradox. A surge of unbearable memory flooded Nusa's vision: a forge-fire-lit dawn, laughing in old Terran sands… then a field of dead Thunder Warriors, and the emperor standing alone amidst ashes.
"Hello to you too, brother. I see you have some soul related problem there." Nusa said in melancholic tone, while trying to brighten the somber mood.
With his psychic capabilities and the emperor being in front of him, nusa could see that the millenium long sitting on the golden throne while being fed 1000 psykers a day is slowly chipping away the emperor human side.
The one in front of him, is full of hatred and anger. One can call him the dark side of the Emperor.
{Unity… Sunderer… oath… failure… The Phoenix… The Machine… My sons… My sons…}
The Emperor's splintered mind reached for the familiar memory, and recoiled at the same time. Hearing the word failure, guilliman shudders but still kneeling as he looks down at the floor. The primarch is unwilling to show his face to his father.
"Worry not, brother," Nusa murmured, his voice soft as distant thunder. "I will help rebuild the Imperium — the future we once dreamed of. That vision still lives… in me, if nowhere else."
He stepped closer to the Throne, to the frail figure entombed within the golden machine. A thousand cables tethered the Emperor to life, yet it was the dim, flickering light within those ancient eyes that Nusa sought.
"And the rest of you… where are they, brother?" Nusa's tone grew heavy with sorrow. "Let me find you. Let me make you whole once more."
Without hesitation, he placed his palm against the Emperor's chestplate — a cold, ancient relic that still thrummed faintly with the beat of a god.
"I have found them, brothers," he whispered. "Fragments of you… scattered and lost… ."
Above them, orbs of pale, ghostly light seeped through the chamber's domed ceiling — each a fragment of the Emperor's long-broken soul.
The wisps descended like mournful comets, gathering in Nusa's outstretched palm, their glow reflecting in his lone crimson eye.
"This will hurt, brother," Nusa warned quietly, his voice thick with emotion. "Grit your teeth."
With a slow, deliberate motion, he pressed the collected fragments against the Emperor's heart.
The world shattered.
A tremor passed through the Throne Room.
Then, like twin suns igniting, raw psychic power surged between them.
Winds without air screamed through the chamber. Golden light clashed with crimson ether. The stone beneath their feet cracked, warding sigils flared like dying stars.
Guilliman instinctively raised a hand, his breath catching in his throat. The psychic storm felt like a physical pressure, ancient grief and fury made manifest.
Within moments, Terra itself began to quake.
The Emperor, long bound to the Golden Throne and fed a steady tide of psykers for ten millennia, unleashed a psychic scream that tore through the Warp like a thunderclap. It reverberated across half the galaxy — a sun gone supernova in the Immaterium.
The soft, flickering light of the Golden Throne became a storm-wracked inferno, burning like a contained star. A tidal wave of raw psychic might surged outward, its sheer magnitude warping reality within the Throne Room and beyond.
Across the galaxy, psykers of every race clutched their heads in terror as a terrible, wordless presence eclipsed their senses.
On Nusa's HUD, crimson warning runes flooded his vision.
[ALERT: LOWER DELTA-PLUS PSYCHIC ANOMALY DETECTED. USE CAUTION.]
His internal systems screamed alarms, but Nusa focused through the torrent. He split his concentration, raising a translucent psychic barrier to shield Guilliman from the crushing pressure.
Even so, the Primarch staggered, his grip tightening around the hilt of the Emperor's Sword. He drove its blade into the marble floor, anchoring himself as the storm howled around them.
"This isn't over yet…" Nusa hissed between clenched teeth, crimson blood leaking from his nose and ears. "I'll see you made whole."
The battle of wills continued — the Machinist's Alpha-Plus might clashing against the raging Delta-Plus storm. It was a contest no one should have survived. But Nusa endured, his will forged in the dark reaches of exile and ancient wars.
Minutes turned to hours within the writhing tempest.
Until at last — the fury abated.
The blinding light dimmed. The howling psychic wind fell silent.
What had been a raging sun was now a steady, unyielding star — vast, terrible, but no longer uncontrolled.
Nusa, pale and trembling, sagged to his knees. Blood streamed down his chin and dripped from his fingertips. With a shudder, he released the barrier.
A beat later, the Custodes stormed inward — their guardian halberds leveled, bolters primed.
"Stand down!" Guilliman roared, sweat-streaked and panting. "The Machinist aids the Emperor!"
Yet the golden warriors held position, their gene-bred instincts unwilling to trust.
Then the voice came — not aloud, but in the minds of every soul present.
{Stand down…}
The voice of the Master of Mankind.
Old, cold, and terrible — yet undeniably alive.
As one, the Custodes dropped to one knee and lowered their weapons.
{Let us be, companion.}
Trajann bowed his head. "As you command, my liege."
One by one, the Custodes withdrew, leaving the battered room silent save for the hum of failing warding engines and the faint crackle of ozone.
Nusa tried to rise — but his legs buckled.
A hand caught his arm.
Guilliman, his face grim but his grip steady.
"Thank you, Guilliman," Nusa rasped with a weary smile.
The Primarch gave a faint nod, wordless.
Then the Emperor spoke again, his voice in their minds — no longer the cold tyrant of a dying god, but softer now. Familiar.
{Welcome home, Nusa.}
And for the first time in ten thousand years, Nusa embraced his oath-brother.
"Thank you, Atham."