A flicker of genuine curiosity broke through the Monarch's stoicism. This was the core of the matter, the central variable in the equation of this universe. Guilliman's gambit was dangerous, but it offered precisely what was needed: raw, unfiltered data from the source.
"Very well, Regent," he said. "I will see your Emperor. Lead the way."
His calm acceptance was, he could feel, more unnerving to them than any outburst. The procession that followed was one of profound, oppressive silence. They walked the deep places of the Palace, through corridors and causeways unseen by mortal eyes in millennia, descending into the foundations of the Age of Strife.
With every step, the psychic pressure intensified. The agonizing scream of the Emperor was no longer a background noise; it was a physical force, a hurricane of raw power. Reality itself felt thin here. To the Custodes, this was holy ground. To Guilliman, it was a place of deep, personal sorrow.
To the Monarch, it was a blizzard of pure information. He was not being scoured or burned; he was analyzing. In the unending scream, he could parse the component parts: ten thousand years of ceaseless vigilance, a billion battles fought in the minds of men, the grief of a father for his broken sons, and a core of physical agony so absolute it should have annihilated a lesser being a thousand times over. It was the mind of a god, holding a galaxy together through sheer, unbroken torment.
They arrived before a set of doors that made the Eternity Gate seem like a minor obstacle, forged of pure adamantium and sealed with blazing psychic wards. This was the entrance to the Sanctum Imperialis.
Guilliman stopped, turning to face him one last time. "Beyond this gate lies the Master of Mankind," the Primarch's voice was low. "This is no longer a strategic maneuver. It is a matter of faith and reality. The light of the Golden Throne is the purest expression of psychic force in existence. If there is any falsehood in you, any connection to the Ruinous Powers, it will be unmade in an instant."
He paused, searching for any hint of fear. "This is your final opportunity to withdraw."
The Monarch met his gaze and looked past him, to the blazing doors. The power emanating from them was indeed a forge of souls burning at the heart of a sun. But the Primarch's assessment was wrong.
"It is not a fire that burns falsehoods, Regent," he said. "It is the desperate scream of a being in unending agony. A prisoner, holding the walls of his cell together with his will. It is a monument to suffering, not a crucible of truth."
The Custodes bristled, their spears humming with killing intent at the ultimate heresy. Guilliman simply closed his eyes for a moment, the truth in the statement a wound he had lived with for centuries.
"Open the doors," he commanded.
The Captain-General of the Custodes, Trajann Valoris himself, stepped forward. With a sound that was a chord of pure, resonant power, the adamantium gates began to grind open.
It was not a sight that was revealed. It was an event.
A wave of pure, golden light, so intense it was a physical force, erupted from the opening—a tidal wave of sound, energy, and raw psychic might. It was the unfiltered, concentrated power of the Emperor of Mankind, unleashed.
The Primarch and the Custodes were bathed in it, strengthened by it. The wave washed over the Monarch, a force that could unmake galaxies.
And in the heart of the blinding, screaming inferno, he saw it.
A distant, intricate mountain of gold and black machinery. And upon it, a figure. A skeleton, impossibly ancient, clad in shattered golden armor.
The Corpse-God on his Golden Throne.