The Warp is not a place. It is a nightmare given form, a realm where logic and physics dissolve into a maelstrom of raw emotion and conflicting wills. Here, time is a meaningless, elastic concept; the past can arise as a vengeful specter, the future can manifest in distorted fragments, and the present is an eternal battle to impose momentary shape upon the chaos. For most beings, it is the final madness. For the reborn consciousness of the DOOM Slayer, it was simply the greatest hunting ground imaginable.
His resurrection was not a peaceful rebirth.
It was an act of pure violence against non-existence.
As Cadia shattered in the material plane, a spark of indomitable will refused to be extinguished in the sea of souls. There was no soft light, no transition. Only an absolute "NO" resonating through the layers of reality, a rejection so fierce it made the nearby shadows falter. His essence, imbued with the energy of thousands of demons slain on Cadia and fueled by a hatred that was his very being, began to coalesce. It did not take the form of a lamenting soul.
It took the form of a fist.
And then an arm.
And a torso.
He reconstituted himself not with patience, but with fury, every particle of his new immaterium body forged by striking blows against the void, an act of pure creation through destruction.
And the demons came. Like flies to carrion, sensing a new soul to torment. Horrors of Tzeentch, bubbling with arcane energy and twisted possibilities, were the first. They cast spells that could have dismembered a Space Marine or driven a Psyker insane. The projectiles of warp energy struck the Slayer's nascent body... anddissipated. There was no corruption to find, no mind to break. Only a concentrated fury and an absolute purpose that was anathema to their very existence.
The Slayer, now semi-material, raised what would be his head and roared. The sound was not of fear or pain, but of pure defiance. A Bloodletter of Khorne, brandishing its dark fire sword, charged him. The Slayer did not dodge. He stepped forward, grabbed the demon's arm, and tore it clean off with a crunch of warp-energy and bone. The demon's essence spilled out, and the Slayer absorbed it, feeling his own form become more solid, more real, more powerful. His arm, now covered in spectral armor reminiscent of his Praetor suit, struck the Bloodletter's head, reducing it to a spark of energy that he also devoured.
He was the ultimate predator. The Warp, the realm of his enemies, was an infinite larder to him. Every demon he shattered—with fists, with grips, with pure brute force—granted him more substance, more power. He did not hunt to survive; he hunted to consume. A group of Nurgle's Plaguebearers, singing songs of despair and pestilence, tried to overwhelm him with their corrupting presence. The Slayer lunged into them. His fists tore through diseased flesh, and with each death, the pestilence they exuded was purged by the raw fire of his hatred, converted into pure fuel. A Daemonette of Slaanesh slithered toward him, promising indescribable pleasures in exchange for servitude. His response was to grab it by the throat and crush its serpentine neck, absorbing its essence before its promise fully dissipated.
[SENTINEL TACTICAL ANALYSIS SYSTEM REINITIALIZED] - The voice of his Sentinel AI, a familiar, cold echo, sounded in his mind, adapting to his new state of being. [ENVIRONMENT: IMMATERIUM. WARP ENERGY DETECTED. CONVERSION IN PROGRESS]
His armor, a spectral replica of his gear, began to reform with greater clarity, harnessing the energy it stole.
[RECOMMENDATION: THIS PLANE'S ENERGY CAN REPLACE CONVENTIONAL AMMUNITION. CHANNELING]
A flash of warp energy ran down the barrel of a spectral Super Shotgun that materialized in his hands. He fired. The blast was not of buckshot, but of pure, concentrated rage, shredding a horde of Horrores in a cacophony of dying screeches.
His genocide did not go unnoticed.
---
The Golden Throne, Terra
Pain was a constant. A symphony of agony resonating through every atom of his psychic being. Holding the Astronomican, containing the tide of Chaos at the Terran Portal, guiding humanity... each action was a drop of suffering in an ocean of eternal torment. He, who had been humanity's beacon, their unrecognized god, was now crucified atop the pinnacle of his empire, a prisoner of his own masterpiece.
His consciousness, a vast field of psychic energy stretching beyond mortal comprehension, mechanically swept the currents of the Warp. He perceived the infinitely complex patterns of Tzeentch, the thoughtless rage of Khorne, the cyclical despair of Nurgle, the hollow echo of Slaanesh's excess. He felt the last breath of Cadia, the fear of countless worlds, the faint, fragile hope on Mundus Planus... and then, something ripped his attention.
An anomaly. It was not a whisper, but a silent scream in the warp. A point of absolute and pure fury, so concentrated it cut through the chaotic narrative of the Warp like a diamond cuts glass. It did not bend to the chaos surrounding it; it defied it. It consumed it.
What atrocity have they created now? thought the ancient consciousness, a flash of infinite weariness in his thought. A new toy of the Gods? A Daemon Weapon meant to shatter what remains of rationality?
He extended a thread of his perception, an act that cost him a new spike of agony. And what he found left him stunned, a feat nearly impossible after ten thousand years of unending pain.
It was not warp-born. It was not chaotic. It was... focused. A will so inflexible that the Warp itself seemed to solidify around it in resistance. It was hatred. But not the indiscriminate hatred of Khorne. This was a cold, calculating, and directed wrath, a force of vengeance that existed for the sole purpose of exterminating the horrors of the warp. A determination so unyielding it made that of his Primarchs seem like childish whims. And a soul... a soul so incorruptible that the promises of power, the whispers of glory, the temptations of immortality, and the screams of pain that formed the very texture of the warp crashed against it and dissipated, rejected as the most insignificant background noise. This being had a single purpose: to end them.
And then, at the core of that divine fury, he felt it. Deep, buried under layers of accumulated power and a rage that could eclipse stars, a spark of humanity burned. Not the weak, fearful, easily corruptible humanity he had guided and disappointed for millennia. But a version purified in the fire of absolute loss and hardened on the anvil of eternal vengeance. This being, whoever it was, had chosen this path. It had willed itself to become the literal doom of demons.
It was not from here. The revelation was like a lightning strike. It was a new variable, an element external to the entire equation of the galaxy. Neither the Dark Gods nor he had foreseen it. It was not a savior. It was an executioner. A spark of hope, not of salvation or enlightenment, but of absolute retribution. An opportunity, however tiny, to bring the war back to Chaos, to give humanity, his humanity, a respite.
His vast consciousness, with an effort that made the thousand psykers powering the Throne scream, turned toward the material plane. Toward Macragge. He saw Yvraine and her kind, the Ynnari, desperate on the sacred ground of the Sanctum of Guilliman. The ritual to return his son, Roboute, to life was underway, but it was fragile, slow. And he saw the fleets of Chaos descending like vultures, the daemonic legions of Chaos carving their way toward the sanctum. He could do nothing. Every gram of his power was dedicated to preventing the Imperium from plunging into a new Age of Darkness. He could not send the Legion of the Damned, he could not manifest a miracle. He was paralyzed.
But this being... thisSlayer...
Fragments of visions came to him. He saw him on Cadia, fighting with terrifying efficiency, decimating daemonic hordes that would have required entire companies of Astartes. He saw him fall before the Usurper, Abaddon, his body shattered by the Talon of Horus. And he saw him now, in the Warp, performing the most impossible act: resurrecting through pure force of will, refusing the concept of death, tearing demons apart with his bare hands as his body reconstituted itself not with the energy of Chaos, but by stealing it from his enemies. It was the purest, rawest manifestation of human will he had ever felt. It was not a god. It was not a Primarch. It was a man who had said "enough" and become a scourge.
He could not save Macragge. But perhaps... he could.
It was a colossal gamble. He was unleashing an uncontrollable force of destruction onto one of his most precious worlds. But the alternative was to watch his son fail to be reborn and the Imperium Secundus fall.
With a final effort that made the eyes of the thousand Throne psykers bleed, the man known as the Emperor of Mankind pushed. It was not a psychic attack, nor a spell. It was an infinitesimal yet incredibly potent suggestion in the warp's current, a beacon of wrath and purpose that only a consciousness like the Slayer's could detect and find irresistible. He located a rift, a point where the veil between realities was thin as paper thanks to the massive Chaos invasion on Macragge, and guided the force of destruction toward it, like lightning being conducted to a lightning rod.
A final thought, an order, a prophecy that transcended words, filtered through the Warp into the warrior's consciousness. It was an echo from another time, from another universe, a mandate that was his very being:
RIP AND TEAR...
UNTIL IT IS DONE!
And in the Emperor's mind, for an instant worth ten thousand years of agony, he saw a mark burning against the darkness: a fist clad in armor striking a demon's skull. The mark of the Scourge.
In the Warp, the DOOM Slayer, midst tearing apart a higher-ranking Bloodletter, stopped. He looked up. His eyes, behind the visor, saw not with light, but with hatred. And he saw the path. He felt a new focus for his infinite rage, a new hell to purge.
With a roar that silenced the whispers of the Warp around him and made the daemonic hordes recoil in a moment of pure instinctual terror, he launched himself toward the rift, toward the material world, toward a new war.
On the Golden Throne, the Emperor's consciousness withdrew, exhausted beyond all measure. The die was cast. He had sent a wolf to guard his lamb. Only time would tell if he had condemned or saved his son.