Chapter 36: Sin Is Nothing More Than This
The Emperor never expected he would feel genuine anxiety about unseen future events before they had even occurred, and then release all his accumulated power in a single burst.
Normally, a single Greater Daemon would require minimum effort to defeat. But when the Emperor's power dissipated and his awareness returned, he realized the entity invading Nostramo was not an ordinary Greater Daemon at all; it was a fragment of a Chaos God.
The Emperor's eyes widened as he sensed the truth. One of the Ruinous Powers had manifested here, and her only target was Wayne.
The Emperor felt uncharacteristic anxiety. If someone like Wayne were corrupted by Tzeentch, the consequences would be catastrophic. The Imperium of Man could not possibly withstand a Dark Imperium, an artificial intelligence empire blessed by Chaos.
Wayne's current situation was critical. The Emperor had to help him. He reached out through the Warp, searching for Wayne's psychic presence. But for reasons he couldn't determine, the Emperor could no longer sense Wayne. He seemed to have entered Tzeentch's domain, completely cutting off communication.
For the first time in tens of thousands of years, the Emperor of Mankind cared this deeply about a single mortal. Wayne's wisdom and madness were either humanity's greatest hope or its extinction. Just like the Primarchs, he was a double-edged sword.
The Emperor couldn't even imagine what would happen if Wayne became Tzeentch's ally. Based on Wayne's capabilities and his understanding of Imperial weaknesses, he could detonate the Webway project and manipulate the other Primarchs with terrifying efficiency.
"Malcador, we must depart immediately." The Emperor stood and looked at the two Primarchs beside him: Horus and Fulgrim. "Your brother is under attack by an unknown enemy. I can sense it; his life is in grave danger."
Horus stepped forward. "Father, if that's the case, then we must arrive quickly. But the Warp currents..."
"Activate the Warp engines of the Bucephalus! I will use my psychic power to cross the galaxy directly."
Horus was somewhat surprised, but he knew the Emperor's supreme psychic capabilities and his determination to protect his sons would drive him to unleash even greater strength. Truly, their Father was willing to traverse the entire galaxy for the sake of a brother in danger.
Fulgrim also recognized the Emperor's determination to protect his children. The power he was preparing to unleash demonstrated exactly why the Emperor deserved their absolute loyalty.
Constantine was assigned temporary command of the Imperial Fleet while the Emperor prepared to lead the two Primarchs directly into the Warp. Golden flames enveloped the Bucephalus as it plunged into the immaterium.
In an instant, the surrounding Warp was illuminated by the Emperor's presence. His will defied time and space, intending to cross half the galaxy to reach the battlefield.
But Tzeentch would certainly not allow the Emperor to arrive so easily. Along their path, Warp currents crystallized into obstacles, hindering their progress. The Emperor predicted an arrival in nine hours, but in reality, when they would arrive depended entirely on Tzeentch's interference.
...
Meanwhile, deep within ground zero, Owl daemon stood before Wayne, observing him carefully. Wayne faced the daemon with an unwavering stance.
"Wayne, on Nostramo, I am known as the god of owls. After all, this world is filled with deceit and intrigue, and its people yearn desperately for justice."
"Justice? Who are you to talk about justice? You have never been associated with justice, daemon."
The daemon's form rippled with amusement. "The gods grant humanity power, but never promise them eternity. Whether religious officials, nobles, common citizens, or slaves, it makes no difference. They all die."
The Owl spoke with mocking knowledge, as if it knew everything about Wayne's past.
"It is precisely because humans crave immortality that my eyes can clearly capture every trace of their desperate ambition. I hear their voices. They say, 'One day, this experiment will succeed.' How ironic."
The daemon continued. "Your ancestors' experiments sacrificed the lives of countless young women in their baffling stupidity for a sorry excuse of a ritual. I witnessed their suffering before I was born. Ultimately, it was the greed and impatience of your medical scientists; their demands were endless, and the Wayne Family's need for test subjects was insatiable."
The Owl's form began to shift. It transformed into a young girl, a tormented child. Wayne's expression remained impassive as he watched the transformation.
"But while your ancestors celebrated each incremental improvement, others were dying simultaneously. Yet they invested their hearts and minds in celebration, thus ignoring the sacrifices."
The girl paused, tear stains clearly visible on her haggard face. She appeared no older than fifteen.
The daemon presented itself as a pitiful young girl, fragile and suffering in places unseen by those who could help.
The girl raised trembling hands toward Wayne. "Being strapped to an operating table is agony. In pursuit of experimental accuracy, those great medical scientists gave me no anesthesia. The pain was heart-wrenching torment spreading through my body. My soul was slowly destroyed, my flesh slowly disintegrated."
It materialized the ancestral sins of the Wayne Family, attempting to torment Wayne through guilt and moral condemnation.
The daemon's words dripped with mockery. It wanted to demonstrate that the justice humanity pursued was itself a form of torment, no different from the suffering inflicted by daemons themselves.
"I don't know if anyone cared, but I know this is the truth—the bloody, horrible, forgotten truth that shows humanity its own reflection, the truth of your sinful bloodline, Wayne."
The girl looked upward. The sky above had turned from pure blue to blurry blood red. Tears welled in her eyes, but they were not clear like water; they were crimson.
"Human experiments hurt beyond description. Please stop this cruelty, humans. The Wayne Family in the past harmed countless innocents, arbitrarily manipulated human genetic sequences, contributed to the collapse of the Dark Age of Technology, and you..."
Wayne grew impatient with the daemon's lengthy performance. His expression hardened as he found the daemon's theatrical display nothing more than a foolish attempt at influencing him.
Was it attempting to mock Wayne's supposed depravity through moral condemnation? Did it want to claim that daemons and Wayne were fundamentally the same, and therefore should cooperate?
Wayne crossed his arms. "What exactly are you shouting about?"
His voice carried clear annoyance. "If descendants of those victims came to me, I would gladly accept their criticism. But you, a fragment of an evil god, a perpetrator of great atrocities, you have no right to give me any moral lecture. You have no morality or humanity whatsoever. In the past millennia, who knows how many civilizations you have corrupted and destroyed?"
The Owl daemon in girl form looked at him accusingly. "You don't care about your ancestors' sins? Not even a shred of guilt?"
"Guilt? What guilt??" Wayne chuckled coldly.
He didn't care how the daemon performed, nor did he care about the girl it had materialized.
"Guilt is for weak-minded men. I am anything but that." Wayne pointed his finger at the daemon and said with mockery. "And here I thought I was against someone intelligent, alas. Are you even a daemon of Great Conspirator?"
"Are you so delusional that you have forgotten who you are standing in front of? The Wayne Family and their atrocities—does any of it matter now? What bloodline, what crimes? I would have done way worse to my foes; there is no comparison."
The daemon's form flickered, the girl's image wavering uncertainly. "What?" Its expression showed genuine confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Wayne stepped closer to the daemon, his voice steady and cold. "You don't understand me, Beast. I am no slave to morality. Standing in front of you is a madman, a monster, and what monster can be greater than Marshall Wayne?"
The girl's figure flickered, and the expression on the daemon's face grew increasingly pale as it finally sensed something it should not... a bone-chilling cold that pierced even its immortal essence.
In the Immaterium, Wayne's reflection manifested as a vision of incomprehensible horror: an endless, dark, muddy ocean, thick with despair. Above it churned a ferocious storm beneath blackened skies, reverberating with the cacophony of billions of souls condemned to eternal damnation. And towering above it all stood a single snow-covered mountain—still, beautiful, and utterly unmoved by the chaos raging around it.
This was Wayne's domain in the Warp, a small pocket of reality born from the atrocities he had committed and the manner in which he had killed. Wayne had not slain trillions, but the billions who fell to him died in ways that would make the entire Wayne bloodline itself crawl in fear within their graves.
Wayne looked at the daemon's shrinking form and spoke matter-of-factly. "I am not the one being judged; it is you. I am your judge and executioner."
[End of Chapter]