The wave of golden energy struck with the force of a supernova. It was a metaphysical tsunami of pure life, will, and emotion, weaponized by ten millennia of unending agony, designed to annihilate anything not wholly aligned with its source.
Guilliman and the Custodes expected the Monarch to be unmade. They braced for his screams, for his dissolution into black smoke.
They were disappointed.
For a single, infinitesimal moment, the roaring tide of life contested his own nature. It was like being plunged into a star, anathema to the cold, silent darkness that was the core of his being.
Then, his authority asserted itself.
I am the Monarch of Death. The King of the Dead. Life, in all its chaotic, screaming, vibrant glory, is merely the prelude to my domain.
The golden tsunami did not break against him. It parted. The blinding light of the Emperor's will bent around his form, leaving him shrouded in his own faint, violet aura. The deafening psychic scream of a trillion souls muted in his presence, replaced by the perfect, profound silence that was his own. He was a hole in reality, a void in the storm.
He took a step forward, then another. He began to walk toward the Golden Throne.
Behind him, he could feel the pure, unadulterated disbelief from the Primarch and his guard. Their god's ultimate sanction had been met with complete and utter indifference.
The throne room was a cathedral of dying machines. Thousands of desiccated tech-priests and psychic servitors were fused to the Golden Throne's machinery, their life forces siphoned to prolong their master's agony by another second.
As he drew closer, the skeletal figure upon the throne became clearer. A ruin. A husk. But within that ruin, he felt the raging, undying star of a mind. And as he approached, that mind turned its full, terrible attention upon him.
Their minds collided.
He was flooded with a billion visions from a being that had transcended linear time. The birth of stars, the death of galaxies, the laughing faces of the Dark Gods, the rise of the Orks, the fall of the Eldar, the oncoming tide of the Tyranids. He saw a vision of humanity, united and ascendant, a golden dream shattered upon the anvil of betrayal. It was a warning, a curse, a desperate, silent command to leave this galaxy to its fate.
In response, the Monarch did not show visions of war. He projected only the truth of his own being.
He showed him silence.
He showed him his legions of the dead, standing in perfect, unending ranks, their loyalty absolute, their purpose singular. An empire of perfect, final order. He showed him an alternative to his chaotic, desperate struggle for life. He showed him the peace of his dominion.
The Corpse-God recoiled.
The golden light of the throne flared with a new, incandescent fury. The psychic scream escalated into a physical shockwave that cracked the adamantium floor. The Custodes were forced to their knees, their armor cracking under the pressure. Even Guilliman was driven back a step, his expression one of pained, horrified awe.
But the Monarch stood at the foot of the Golden Throne, untouched. The storm of a god's rage broke around his island of silence. He had seen what he needed to see. The being on the throne was powerful, but he was a prisoner, a battery, a dying king chained to a failing engine.
He was not his equal.
Having concluded his analysis, he turned his back on the Golden Throne. The act was the most profound statement of power he could have made. He was not a supplicant or a heretic. He was a foreign king who had surveyed the court of another and found it wanting.
He walked back toward the entrance, passing the kneeling Custodes and the stunned Primarch.
Guilliman remained for a moment, staring at the throne, then at the empty space where the Monarch had stood. He had brought a force of nature to face his god, hoping for a divine judgment. Instead, he had just witnessed that god's impotence. The foundation of his faith had been calmly observed, analyzed, and dismissed. The Monarch was not a prisoner in his gilded cage.
The entire Imperium was.