With the Black Templars having reclaimed their Emperor's Champion, Techmarines swiftly extracted the combat logs from his power armor. These records were submitted to the Inquisition and the Administratum to formally register Thien's deeds of valor.
As the battle records were verified, the saga of Thien's heroism spread like wildfire across the entire Eastern Front. Whenever the legendary tale of the lone warrior carving through a Chaos battleship with a single blade was told, an Ultramarine would invariably emerge from a nearby shadow, whispering insistently:
"I believe Lord Malum Caedo could have achieved the same."
The recorded dialogue where Thien rebuked Abaddon on the bridge of the heretic vessel earned him the profound admiration of the High Marshal of the Black Templars. In recognition, the High Marshal even considered bequeathing the Crusader's Helm to Thien.
This storied relic had been passed down through the Chapter's champions for centuries. Its ancient vox-grille is inset with the jawbone of Saint Sebatus, amplifying the wearer's voice with such divine courage that their oratory can drown out the cacophony of war, stoking the fires of fanaticism in the hearts of nearby battle-brothers.
Though the strategic situation on the Eastern Front remained grim, Thien's survival and defiance served as a potent catalyst for morale. Even the Lord Regent Guilliman, upon receiving news of the feat, personally commended the courage and loyalty of this son of Dorn.
…
Meanwhile, within the subterranean vaults beneath Terra, two unlikely figures were meeting.
"Heh, heh, heh... Catastrophe and transformation are at hand. Hermit, do you see the Imperium beginning to burn?"
"This time, the rot of the Imperium shall face its final ruin. The lapdogs of the False Emperor grant you no trust; your fate and mine are one and the same."
In the heart of a darkened cell, a figure bound tightly by psychic-dampening chains let out a rasping, mocking laugh. In the adjacent cell sat Ersen, the loyalist Word Bearer who had been returned from Commorragh by the Iron Men. Ersen's condition was far better than his neighbor's; though his movements were restricted, he was not draped in heavy manacles.
"Khayon, though my psychic gifts may not rival yours, the Emperor has granted me His own revelations. Disasters may indeed fall, but within those calamities lie infinite seeds of hope."
"You should remain steadfast in your faith. The wars of old were choked with schemes, but betrayal was never the righteous path."
Outside the cells, a guard of the Shadowkeepers stood motionless. To these Warders of the Dark Cells, the words of any Astartes, be they loyalist or traitor, were fundamentally untrustworthy.
Upon boarding the Inquisition Black Ship, the Night Lord Mordred had vanished from the crowd. He had no desire to deal with the Holy Ordos. No jailer could hope to apprehend a Night Lord augmented by Iron Man-pattern power armor.
Ersen, however, had not fled. He carried a specific mission. Upon boarding the Black Ship, he was the first to voluntarily divest himself of the advanced armor crafted with ancient technology, willingly submitting to psychic dampening and revealing his identity.
The Inquisitors had been thrown into a panic upon confirming his status as a Word Bearer, nearly executing him on the spot. However, the other Angels of the Emperor rescued alongside him stood in unison to testify to Ersen's loyalty. Thus, while the warriors of other Chapters were reclaimed by their respective Brotherhoods, Ersen was escorted to Terra.
He was consigned to the vaults deep beneath the Throneworld. During his internment, Guilliman himself had come to look upon this son of a former brother, inquiring as to his purpose. Ersen, however, offered no specifics, telling the Regent only that the time had not yet come.
Given his gene-line and the uncertainty surrounding his motives, Guilliman eventually entrusted his custody to the Imperial Fists. This was not Macragge; even as Lord Regent, he could not station Ultramarines to guard an enigmatic Word Bearer on the Fists' home turf. However, once the Adeptus Custodes learned of the situation, they simply demanded Ersen from the Imperial Fists and threw him directly into the Dark Cells.
It was there that Ersen met his neighbor: Iskandar Khayon.
Born on Prospero and recruited into the Thousand Sons at a young age, Khayon had been marked early for his prodigious psychic talent. Following the Great Heresy, he had attempted to stop Ahriman from casting the Rubric; following that failure, he and a few brothers departed Sortiarius aboard the Thousand Sons vessel Tlaloc. In the years after Horus's defeat at Terra, Khayon lived largely as a warrior for hire. His preferred payment was either battle automata to guard his ship or forbidden knowledge. He had even spent six years fighting for a Night Lords warband in exchange for a partial map of the Webway.
During those wandering years, Khayon met and befriended a Drukhari Scourge named Nefertari. When she was slain by the Slaaneshi Greater Daemon Zarakynel, the Souleater, Khayon resurrected her by forcibly binding her soul to her corpse through sorcery. Nefertari remained unaware that she was essentially a psychic "zombie," her soul permanently shackled to her own remains.
Beyond his twisted bond with the xenos, Khayon was bound by an absolute loyalty to Abaddon. He had even utilized his psychic might to suppress the Crimson King, Magnus, forcing the Primarch to kneel before Abaddon, an act that earned him the title of Kingbreaker.
Some Imperial scholars speculated maliciously that Khayon's devotion to Abaddon stemmed from his sister, Itzara Khayon, who had become the Machine Spirit of the Vengeful Spirit. Since Abaddon controlled the flagship, the scholars joked that Khayon simply viewed the Warmaster as his brother-in-law.
…
As the mechanical fleet of Axion reached the Eastern Front, a form of warfare never before witnessed began.
The Iron Man fleet did not head directly for the current Imperial battle lines. Instead, they arrived at the sector where the initial fighting had erupted. Eerie light soon began to shimmer amidst the vast debris fields of shattered ships.
The Regression had begun.
Everything within this zone began to operate in reverse, as if time itself were flowing backward. Ork vessels that had long since breached the initial lines and pushed deep into the Imperium suddenly flickered back into existence within this localized area.
As the spatiotemporal control fields were deactivated, the concentrated fire of the Iron Man fleet instantly reduced the "regressed" Ork ships into clouds of space junk.
Simultaneously, on distant battlefields in the "present" timeline, vast swarms of Orks and their kroosers simply dissolved into grey dust before the eyes of the stunned Imperial defenders. The Eastern Front was incredibly vast, and the Regression Fleet consisted of only one battlegroup with a finite range. Thus, the Iron Men began to painstakingly work their way along the old battle lines, "regressing" the war zone piece by piece.
At the newest Imperial defensive lines, as countless Orks faded into nothingness, the eerie spectacle left even the most devout loyalists feeling a cold, creeping dread.
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