"Lorgar Aurelian."
Huron was certain that the figure standing before him was the Primarch of the Word Bearers, Lorgar Aurelian.
But he was riddled with anomalies—a wrongness Huron found difficult to describe. It was as if Lorgar was a being born of entirely different principles than any other creature in this universe. Looking at him, Huron felt much like a human seeing the grotesque bioluminescent horrors of the deep sea for the first time. If one were to capture a single static moment, Lorgar might look normal; but in Huron's eyes, Lorgar was in a state that was simultaneously formed and unformed.
He looked like clusters of indescribable light forcibly compressed into a human shape and stuffed into Lorgar's physical shell. With every step he took, a chorus of voices seemed to linger around him, murmuring knowledge that the masses of the galaxy had yet to discover. Hearing even a stray syllable made Huron's head throb with a sickening pressure.
The Warp-creature Hamadrya, crouched at Huron's feet, let out a fractured, keening cry. Lorgar merely turned his head to look at the creature that had gifted Huron his extraordinary psychic power. The Hamadrya let out a shriek of agony as its body began to fold and twist like a piece of paper. Countless shadows overlapped upon its form, flickering like a malfunctioning projector, rendering it unable to move so much as an inch.
"Lorgar, what in the hell have you..." Huron felt a creeping terror. Huron prided himself on his intellect and cold rationality—it was the very reason he suspected his Astral Claws' gene-seed originated from Roboute Guilliman. But the Lorgar he saw now transcended anything that rationality could define.
"I have received enlightenment. I enjoy the bliss brought by true insight."
Lorgar opened his mouth, and a voice filled with both fanaticism and joy spilled out: "O unawakened one, only upon seeing the Truth shall you know: Rationality is but a shackle; knowledge is but a tether. All that is 'knowable' is not worth knowing."
"Look out upon the horizon; the island of the knowable is but a negligible speck in the sea of the unknowable. Only by merging into the shifting sea did I learn what a narrow cage I was once confined within."
Huron was speechless. In his perception, Lorgar was undoubtedly insane. Was he the mastermind behind all this?
No, he was just a tool. Huron made the judgment almost instantly. Lorgar was merely a weapon that had been refashioned. Something alien had been injected into him, turning him into this eerie, uncanny thing.
"I want to talk to your master." Huron felt almost surprised at himself; facing such a grotesque Primarch, he still possessed a feral courage that allowed him to bargain. "I still have the power to destroy both you and this planet. Whatever your master wants from me or this world, I can put it to the torch."
Huron reached out a hand, placing it over the "Eye of the Maelstrom" on his bionic arm—a unique variant of the Chaos Star that served as a direct link to the Blackstone Fortress in the void. With a single thought from Huron, the fortress would drop, scouring this world from existence. Even a Primarch, he reasoned, would struggle to survive the fall of a Blackstone Fortress. This was his leverage.
Uncanny light suddenly leaped and flickered from Huron's hand. For a fleeting second, Huron saw his long-destroyed left arm restored to flesh, while his bionic arm shifted to the right side, before snapping back an instant later. Finally, a bone-chilling pain erupted in his left arm. He felt his original flesh-and-blood arm return, but it was merged into the bionic limb. Flesh, bone, skin, and nerves were interlaced with steel, cables, and pipes. The fusion brought agonizing pain and rendered the once-precise bionic arm completely useless.
All it took was a look.
Huron panted from the pain, his gaze dropping, no longer daring to look Lorgar in the eye. Having lost his trump card, his mental fortitude wavered. He didn't think he could maintain his sanity if he kept staring at this twisted Lorgar. Who was it? Who had this kind of power and motive?
The Four Gods? That Saint Doraemon?
No, none of them...
Huron suddenly thought of one person. Only *He* could have such power...
No, how could that be...
"Huron."
A light, melodic call rang out. Huron identified it as an Eldar voice. He spun around, only to see a slender Eldar. The xenos possessed wings and stared at Huron with pitch-black eyes, calling his name.
"You have talent, yet it goes unacknowledged."
The xenos looked at Huron and said, "I can see your hatred. Searing, scalding hatred that wishes to burn those pedantic High Lords to ash."
"I can satisfy that hatred. I can give you the power you require."
"See, I gave Lorgar unparalleled power as well, and he is quite satisfied with it."
This was the final corner of the Chaos Star, bartered for with the sacrifice of the entire Black Legion—a corner of the unknowable realm of the Unformed Distortion. *He* had shoved it into Lorgar, staining him into a Daemon Primarch of the Unborn Realm, thereby tapping into that domain's power.
"Who are you?" Huron looked at the xenos warily. His arm still throbbed, but he suppressed the pain as much as possible to keep his mind sharp.
"You ask what you already know," the xenos said with a smile.
Flames, a throne, a corpse... all of it flashed through the xenos's eyes for a fleeting second.
"...So, it is you." Huron's expression shifted to one of sudden realization, bordering on sycophancy. "I am delighted to see you walking among mortals once more."
He suppressed the wave of nausea in his throat and walked toward the xenos step by step. "As you know, I never intended to betray you. It was those shameless High Lords who forced me into hiding here."
"Since you walk the earth again, I can finally—" Huron swung his left claw, the one fused with flesh and metal, aiming straight for the xenos's chest.
It was caught.
Fingers so slender they seemed made only of skin and bone clamped around Huron's wrist. The xenos hoisted him up, dragging him close to the alien face.
"You are a smart man. There is no need for such foolish behavior," the xenos said calmly, as if Huron's petty assassination attempt hadn't even provoked anger.
"I have often taken pride in my intellect." Huron let out a mocking laugh. "But you—you xenos—even an idiot could see you aren't him."
"You pretend to be the Emperor of Mankind, but I see only an ugly Warp creature inhabiting a xenos shell."
"You unenlightened fool! He is my Ennedi, my God! You have never seen his form with your own eyes, so how do you know it is not him?" Before the xenos could speak, the frenzied Lorgar chimed in.
"I haven't seen him... and I don't think he's as perfect as the Ecclesiarchy claims. I think he might very well be a shameless, vulgar bastard with many flaws."
"But I believe he is never *base*. I've pried the truth of the Golden Throne from the Dark Eldar. I don't believe the person capable of sitting on that throne looks anything like you."
Facing Huron's gaze of suspicion and disgust, the xenos's expression didn't waver. *He* opened his mouth slightly: "You have been a pawn of the Gods. Not long ago, you expressed submission to Guilliman. You once followed Abaddon's orders. You possess such a flexible moral compass; why are you unwilling to cooperate with me now? I can achieve your goals. I can destroy the Empire and help you complete your revenge..."
Huron's gaze met those almond-shaped eyes. In them, he saw burning, fire, destruction, and resentment.
"...It does seem worth considering." Huron fell silent for a moment, appearing to weigh the offer.
The xenos let go, releasing Huron.
"But before that, can you fix my hand?" Huron waved his bloody, metal-interlaced hand. "Just change it back to a bionic one."
Lorgar frowned, but the xenos nodded.
A thin light flashed, and Huron's left hand returned to its bionic state.
With a thought, Huron issued the command to the Blackstone Fortress to crash into the planet.
There was no response. Had the fortress already been seized?
Huron shook his head bitterly, though not entirely surprised.
"Why are you unwilling to submit to me?" the xenos asked calmly, though showing genuine confusion. "I thought you were a flexible, intelligent man."
"At first, I thought you were just pretending to be the Emperor. Now I see you aren't even human; you're just pretending to be *a person*."
Huron laughed mockingly. "You say I'm a flexible, smart man. No, I'm a stubborn, pig-headed idiot."
"If I were the type to bow to just anyone, I would have been licking the High Lords' boots back then."
"I can tolerate Guilliman, but I cannot tolerate you."
The Master of the Maelstrom tightened his claw. Beneath his armor was a broken body. The Empire's "punishment" had destroyed his small kingdom, burned his Badab, demolished the Palace of Thorns, and left over half his body destroyed by the roar of meltas. He had once wanted to protect his Chapter, his realm, and his people. He had believed in the ideal of protecting humanity, but the idiots of the High Lords destroyed that ideal and his body. Back then, he had only two hundred Astral Claws left and a dying frame, but he had not yielded. That was Lufgt Huron: stubborn, unyielding, and refusing to die. He could bow to Guilliman, he could maneuver between the Gods, but there was one thing he would never submit to: Death itself.
"I can see what you are inside."
"Do you think you are taking revenge on the world on behalf of the masses of the galaxy?"
"I don't call that revenge. I want my enemy's failure and my own victory."
"I want my enemies destroyed, but I do not want my own death. I want to struggle to survive, to gather strength time and again and crush my foes. I don't want to march toward death with my enemies; I want to be alive, laughing maniacally over their corpses. Because that is the only thing that counts as true revenge."
"And what you have is just cowardice. Cowardice so deep you don't even dare to exist in this world."
"How pathetic..."
Huron's gaze toward the xenos was mocking and playful.
"I have a thousand ways to enslave you," the xenos said, looking down at Huron.
"Then go eat Eldar shit," Huron spat, directed a curse at the xenos with a gesture, and spat at its feet.
The xenos remained unfazed, simply placing a hand over Huron's face.
Blood slowly began to seep from the face of the Master of the Maelstrom.
---
"The astropathic communication with the Maelstrom is still open. Huron said he is willing to come to the *Macragge's Honour* soon to express his submission."
"He was too hurried. He lacks the maneuvering, detours, and bargaining of a qualified statesman."
"It's just as you guessed. It seems the Red Corsairs have fallen as slaves to this so-called Angel of Extermination... I thought Huron wouldn't submit."
"Of course, he likely didn't yield by choice, but he is being controlled nonetheless."
Aboard the *Macragge's Honour*, Roboute Guilliman shook his head slightly, speaking to Alexander.
"I used the Right-and-Wrong Divination tool. It's certain they escaped into the Warp through the rift in the Maelstrom."
"What is their goal? Or rather, what is *our* goal?"
Alexander opened his eyes, seemingly just recovering from a rest. Through an extreme trade, he had fully regained his humanity, but with that came the return of mental exhaustion and tension. He rubbed his nose with his finger. "If I weren't afraid we'd still have to work overtime after going to the 22nd century, I'd really want to sell the God of Overtime directly to the Future Department Store and make the concept of 'overtime' vanish from the galaxy."
"There's a God of Overtime in the Warp?" Guilliman asked, stunned.
Alexander shot Guilliman a strange look. Sanguinius, sitting beside Alexander, couldn't help but let a smile graze his lips. The Lion frowned, then, as if realizing something, distanced himself slightly from Guilliman.
"The Warp contains everything. A stray thought, a hallucination, a collective fantasy—all can create ripples and give birth to entities in the Warp."
"It's just that their power is usually too thin, and they soon dissolve... whereas those more powerful beings, the 'Gods' born of different faiths, rely on the faith and memories of people to persist. But when they are forgotten, and the faith pointing to them is no longer strong enough, they perish."
"The catch is that there is no time in the Warp. Dying 'now' means dying at every moment in the past. Certain causalities shatter because of it; certain histories change."
"Those dead Gods, dragging their shattered causalities and the parts of the Warp that once formed them but are no longer active, sink together into the depths of the Warp, precipitating into masses of congealed worlds."
"Now, Isha has sunk into them, along with the Tree of Life—the Old One artifact that once nurtured all life in the galaxy."
"If there is anything in this world that can bring the King in Black, the symbol of the death of all things, back to life... it is the Tree of Life that birthed all life."