With those words, the battlefield went briefly quiet.
After saying them, Zhou Ye himself paused for a moment.
"It's fine. This is all part of the plan. Just proving I'm not his so-called brother. This disguise is burned anyway -- I'll have to build a new one."
He found a perfectly reasonable justification for himself almost immediately. Yes. Definitely part of the plan.
He could not really be blamed for this. He was, at the end of the day, just a university student. In a university dormitory, the generational hierarchy of "grandfather, father, and son" was a well-established and freely interchangeable institution. Whoever stepped up and decided to go get food for the whole room became, for that moment, the sworn father of everyone inside. Zhou Ye had held that title for his entire floor on more occasions than he could count.
So those three words had come out on pure reflex.
The problem was that now that they were out, Zhou Ye was already feeling somewhat regretful about it.
He had been freely hurling profanity at the Iron Warriors earlier without ever wandering into family-relationship humor. He was aware that Western audiences were deeply fond of this particular genre of banter -- Elden Ring practically ran on it, with Queen Marika having produced an entire gallery of crouching dragons and wayward phoenixes across two marriages and counting. And frankly, by comparison, the Emperor's domestic situation was at least as complicated as Marika's.
But the context was different. Taking these particular liberties with the Emperor's family dynamic, in this particular universe, was an invitation for everything in the galaxy to come for him simultaneously.
The one saving grace: they had already punched deep into the middle of the Nurgle daemon host. The chaos of the battle meant his voice had not carried far. In theory only Mortarion had actually heard it.
And indeed...
When those words reached him, Mortarion went blank.
There was exactly one being in the entire universe who could call himself the father of a Primarch. That being was currently sitting on the Golden Throne and would never leave it again. No daemon had ever dared to impersonate him. Not even the boldest servant of Chaos had the audacity to claim his name -- because to do so was to invite the full concentrated weight of his divine attention onto yourself, like stepping into a star's corona.
But...
"Why. Why. Why are you still ALIVE!!!"
And then, almost immediately, Mortarion's emotional state shattered.
The man in front of him had received no divine punishment whatsoever. Psychic annihilation -- which even Primarchs were not reliably immune to -- had simply done nothing. And Mortarion knew, on some deep and visceral level, that the Emperor saw Primarchs as tools. Powerful, irreplaceable tools, but tools nonetheless. Things that were not to be trifled with, not to be disrespected -- but certainly not to be cherished.
So why. Why was this stranger, who had just said that, standing here completely unscathed.
Was this a new Primarch? One created in the ten thousand years after the Horus Heresy, unknown to all records? An entity created by the False Emperor through power stolen from Grandfather, commanding both life and death?
The more Mortarion turned it over the more wrong it felt. Why had both the False Emperor AND Grandfather chosen to shower this stranger with attention and favor? Why had saying something so outrageously blasphemous produced not a single consequence?
Father. You are so desperately unfair.
The thought lodged in him and turned, and turned, and turned -- and somewhere in the turning, something went very rigid.
He grabbed his scythe.
The two of them had been thinking all of this simultaneously, but at the speeds that beings of their nature operated, the entire exchange had taken less than an eyeblink. And then --
Ding. Clang. Crash.
The greatsword and scythe exchanged strikes in continuous rapid succession, every collision sending colossal shockwaves blasting outward through the Nurgle daemon masses surrounding them. Creatures capable of plunging an entire planet into chaos were being shredded apart simply from the displaced force of these exchanges -- and somewhere in the churning, Zhou Ye caught occasional glimpses of small blue shapes as well.
He didn't particularly care about those at this moment. He had no emotional bandwidth left for them.
His only goal right now was one thing: devour Mortarion. Whatever he could get, he would take.
And in fairness to Mortarion, a Daemon Primarch was still a Daemon Primarch. Especially this one, who was Nurgle's beloved. Actually killing him was a considerably harder problem than killing Typhus had been.
"Brother. Before you stand before Grandfather -- you will pay the price for your words. The False Emperor may love and forgive you. But I cannot simply let this pass."
Even as his chest was carved open again and another measure of divine blessing was stripped away, Mortarion showed no particular concern. He was not Typhus. Nurgle's gifts to him were effectively inexhaustible, especially in an environment saturated like this one.
He said it calmly, almost pleasantly. He was not in a hurry.
---o---
"Captain, you should hurry. The fallen Titans have already yielded tremendous gain, but the entire planet is now entering an unstable state. If this continues, the planet itself may be dragged into the Warp."
Ai-chan's voice reached Zhou Ye's ear at that moment. And it was accurate -- with a Daemon Primarch present on the field, the local reality-Warp boundary had deteriorated to a genuinely dangerous threshold.
"What?"
Zhou Ye blinked.
And in that one instant of distraction, a colossal scythe came down and drove him directly into the ground.
Mortarion followed immediately with a furious press of attacks.
"Why do you keep refusing? What could possibly be distracting you? Did you pick that habit up from Guilliman? We were always the False Emperor's constructs -- Chaos is our true nature. Embrace it. Come. Grandfather is waiting. He will give you the most generous blessing he has ever offered to anyone..."
Mortarion hammered at him as they drove their position deeper and deeper, carving a fracture in the ground dozens of meters wide in moments. And yet somehow, despite the words being nominally a recruitment speech, the tone had been increasingly, unmistakably saturated with something that could only be described as bitterness.
And getting more bitter by the second.
---o---
On the other side of the field:
"Everyone pull back!!!"
The enormous tremors rippling through the planet's crust had already sent the Imperial forces staggering across the line. And with Zhou Ye having moved away, the Life-Death Barrier was fading, the holy Necron obelisk barriers draining rapidly.
To fight Nurgle's main host properly, the normal expectation would be multiple Space Marine Chapters, Imperial Guard counted in the millions, Titan Legions, Knight Houses -- the whole apparatus. What Zhou Ye had brought was a fraction of that. This had already exceeded what any force here could sustain against the core Nurgle host.
Zhou Ye gave the order to Ai-chan. The planet had now lost any remaining value. He intended to trigger an Exterminatus -- but there were still materials on the field worth recovering. The people needed to evacuate first.
"All units withdraw!!!"
Volvok asked no further questions. He and the Space Wolf cubs grabbed the damaged Dreadnought Ancient and ran, covered by the Blood Angels Dreadnought and the Lamenters.
As they moved, every one of them felt it -- the sheer scale of the battle behind them, reduced them to something approximately the size of a grain of wheat in comparison. Was this what an Apocalypse-class battlefield felt like? Titans falling. Even Astartes cut down like grain. And at the center of this apocalypse, several immensely powerful figures locked in what appeared to be a personal brawl.
The Star of Trailblaze forces did not appear remotely concerned about their Chapter Master. Which presumably meant there was no reason for the Space Wolves to be either. Right now every Space Wolf had exactly one objective: get the Ancient back to Fenris.
But just as they broke into a full sprint --
Every one of them froze.
"By Russ -- is that the All-Father's power?"
The scorching heat that detonated behind them washed over their backs, and the Space Wolf pack turned almost as one, staring slack-jawed at what was happening.
---o---
Because Zhou Ye had finally run out of patience.
If the disguise was already burned, there was nothing left to hide.
Mortarion's chest went tight for one wordless moment -- and then --
Boom!!!
A column of fire erupted from the earth. Hot enough to melt stone. Hot enough to approximate the surface temperature of a star. It detonated directly in front of Mortarion and swept outward in all directions, incinerating enormous swaths of the Nurgle daemon host -- and considerable numbers of the Orks and T'au forces in the vicinity along with them.
The fire column roared into the sky, bathing the entire planet of Tillius in something indistinguishable from the end of the world.
And rising slowly from within it was a figure with golden wings spread wide, a blazing sacred eight-pointed aureole blazing behind their head.
This time Zhou Ye had committed to the cosplay much more fully. And he needed to move quickly -- there was a great deal to recover before this opportunity closed.
"Fa.... Father?"
Mortarion stared.
Something in the shape of that figure, something in the light -- it reached back across ten thousand years and pulled at a wound that had never fully closed. Standing at the foot of Barbarus as a child, looking up at overlords he could never defeat. Then a golden figure had appeared and casually erased the overlord that Mortarion had spent his entire life unable to touch.
That same helplessness. That same vast, incomprehensible scale.
"No. This is impossible.... GRANDFATHER!!!"
Something clicked in Mortarion's consciousness and he snarled, pulling himself back from the edge of whatever he had been about to feel.
In the Warp, Nurgle had already sensed something wrong. He poured power into Mortarion in a continuous stream -- and in an instant, a shell of dark green radiance interposed itself between Mortarion and the golden fire.
Then --
"!!!"
Mortarion blinked.
The figure in front of him was simply gone. In a span of time so small it could not be measured even in nanoseconds --
"Ugh..."
Zhou Ye appeared on his back. Both hands seized his wings.
What followed was the sensation of gravity increasing by tens of thousands of times, pressing directly down on him. Mortarion's Primarch physiology combined with Nurgle's divine blessing meant it could not truly harm him -- but --
Crack.
Crack!!!
Mortarion's wings were ripped off by brute force.
"Ha ha ha ha..."
Laughter echoed through the air.
And in the Warp, Nurgle's expression turned very unpleasant very quickly. He had given too much power. The scale of his investment had finally sent enormous ripples through the immaterium. Khorne's gaze descended.
"Get away. They are all my children."
Nurgle's rotting hand extended toward Khorne, attempting to block his attention.
And because Tzeentch had already been interfering throughout this entire engagement, in that instant all three of them were doing the same thing simultaneously: covering each other's eyes.
Each one was trying to protect something they wanted to see, and prevent someone else from seeing something they didn't want seen. Three cosmic entities, all playing mutual blindfold in a space containing more raw power than most of realspace could contain.
The Warp Grand Free-for-All officially commenced.
And in the middle of all of it, Zhou Ye had no idea he had just triggered a three-way divine wrestling match in the immaterium. He took Mortarion's torn wings and dropped them directly into the Thousand-Person Theater converter.
The energy yield from a Daemon Primarch's body parts was, to put it plainly, extraordinary.
---o---
"AH!!!"
Mortarion screamed.
Because the damage he had just taken was not simple. He might never recover these wings on his own. Or to put it another way: restoring them would require Nurgle to expend enormous resources on his behalf.
Nurgle would certainly do it. But Mortarion felt something he had not felt in ten thousand years.
The terror of True Death.
Then --
A burning greatsword drove directly through his chest.
Mortarion felt Nurgle's blessing being consumed at a visible, accelerating rate. Right now it was only the blessing. If this continued until the blessing was fully drained, what came next was his own fundamental essence.
"GRANDFATHER, SAVE ME!!!"
Zhou Ye smiled quietly when he heard those familiar words.
And in that moment, Nurgle -- still embroiled with the other two Chaos Gods -- felt the panic of recognizing his blessing draining away from Mortarion at catastrophic speed. He could not see what was happening, but he could feel it. Consequences later. He extended his rotting hand, reached through the weakening veil between the Warp and realspace, and grabbed for his son.
At which point, Khorne and Tzeentch both stopped fighting simultaneously.
Because in the Warp, a blazing sun ignited.
An aurora of light that made every daemon in every corner of the immaterium flinch.
And that light descended as a single slash directly onto the rotting hand reaching through the veil.
"THE ACCURSED ONE!!!"
Nurgle's roar shook the Garden. All of realspace was the Emperor's domain. Even the four Dark Gods had accepted this implicitly. The Chaos Gods might leak their influence into reality, might probe and corrupt its edges -- but to physically reach through that veil uninvited was to invite a response.
---o---
Zhou Ye looked up.
He had sensed it -- something rotting and enormous had been pushing through the veil toward him. He had already been gathering his most refined Imaginary energy, ready to strike the hand himself.
In the Warp, his strength was limited to evasion. But in realspace, the calculation was entirely different. Even the four Dark Gods were simply very large whales in the vast ocean of the Warp. They were not the Warp itself. They could not represent its totality.
And unlike the Honkai universe -- where even the Sea of Trees had its own consciousness and will, where even natural phenomena were sentient and could act with intent -- this universe's Warp was simply the reflection of conscious suffering and belief. Not a living thing. Not a true absolute. Which meant it was not wholly beyond response.
But then Zhou Ye paused. And allowed himself a quiet smile.
The golden sun in the Warp was already handling it. That radiance had burned a wound into Nurgle's outstretched hand that would not heal -- and whatever had been reaching through the veil was absolutely incapable of pushing any further into realspace.
However...
"Going somewhere!!!"
Zhou Ye seized the very pinned-down Mortarion who had all four limbs rendered useless on the ground. What a perfect serving of chips. He was absolutely going to take at least a little more.
And sure enough --
Crack.
The enormous suction from the Garden of Nurgle dragged Mortarion back. But not all of him. Zhou Ye kept what he could grab.
With Mortarion's disappearance, the local reality-Warp boundary snapped back into place at remarkable speed. The veil between realspace and the immaterium was redrawn. Nurgle's sight could no longer reach this location. The divine fire in the Warp slid past quickly after -- searching for something, trying to lock onto it, and finding no anchor. No believers in this immediate area. No thread to follow.
Zhou Ye would tell anyone who asked: the Emperor was not a god.
---o---
"Now. Your turn. It appears your gods have already abandoned you. So then -- if you'll permit me."
Zhou Ye looked around at the assembled daemon forces who had not dared to move a single step in his presence, and gave them his most brilliant smile.
"Don't come any closer!!!"
The Great Unclean Ones finally found that they were unable to smile back. They let out sharp, explosive cries of alarm and turned to flee.
Unfortunately for them, the followers of Nurgle were not known for their footspeed. Those enormous bodies were wholly inadequate for outrunning Zhou Ye's field of vision. And more critically, every one of them could feel it -- their connection to the Warp was completely severed. Grandfather could no longer see them.
The assembled Great Unclean Ones, Plague Bearers, Beasts of Nurgle, and Nurglings all began running with the panicked energy of creatures who had just had their toes stepped on.
Zhou Ye was quick about it. He grabbed the Great Unclean Ones and consumed them one by one. Physically forced them into the converter -- the visual impression was approximately that of feeding something into an industrial woodchipper. The effect on every other Nurgle entity present was immediate and profound terror.
Not that it helped them.
As for the planet itself, Zhou Ye's Exterminatus method was refreshingly direct: he detonated the planetary core. He could have simply destroyed the planet from the outside, but collapsing the core from within was more energy-efficient. He had already prepared for the possibility that Nurgle might intervene while the Emperor chose not to. Time was short.
After consuming several of the larger Beasts of Nurgle, he turned to recovery operations. The materials were the real prize here -- a single corrupted Titan contained more convertible energy than a hundred nameless Greater Daemons, to say nothing of the raw material value. So in rapid succession: the Emperor Titan's remains. The Plague Titan wreckage. Every other Titan and Knight hulk from the combined battle groups. The Ork machine -- after looking at it -- was simply junk. He passed on it.
Then vehicle recovery. Components. Parts. Miscellaneous battlefield wreckage.
And then --
"What -- T'au? Where did these come from?"
A set of starship wreckage floated in the debris field that he could not immediately account for. But there was no time for detailed questions. He pulled the ships in. Then kept sorting through material, consuming Beasts of Nurgle, moving fast.
These creatures, with the planet about to detonate, had no hope of retreating into the Warp to regenerate. Two reasons. First: they believed Zhou Ye's flames could kill them permanently. And in the Warp-soaked soil of Warhammer 40K, where collective belief actively shapes reality, that belief was enough to make it true. Second, and more importantly: the area of the Warp closest to this location was currently saturated with the Emperor's fire. Any daemon trying to return through the veil would run directly into it. The stronger ones might survive the crossing. But Zhou Ye had already consumed the stronger ones.
"Profit. Profit. Absolute profit."
Zhou Ye moved through the battlefield in a state of genuine excitement, collecting everything, converting everything --
Until --
Boom!!!
The detonation arrived. The entire planet of Tillius came apart.
---o---
"Gulp."
The Space Wolves who had already boarded and departed watched the explosion from a distance, every one of them swallowing hard.
They had survived.
Approximately a tenth of their battle-brothers had been laid to rest permanently on that world -- but their Gene-seeds had been recovered. The Death Korps of Krieg and the Aestia Mixed Regiment aboard the same ship had also taken losses, but their formations remained structurally intact. They had not been wiped out.
To survive on a battlefield of this classification at all was already the most fortunate outcome imaginable.
"Is that Lord.... alright."
They looked at the expanding fireball where a planet had just been, and exchanged glances. Even among themselves they had started using that title without noticing. As for the Lord's specific situation -- they did not know. Their Dreadnought Ancient had sworn a solemn oath never to reveal the Lord's identity.
But if even a Primarch could not survive a planetary explosion --
Every Space Wolf felt a chill settle into them at the thought.
But then --
"Look -- he's fine. He's heading toward us. Everyone form up."
Volvok spotted it first. In the expanding fire of the planet's disintegration, a figure was flying toward them, golden wings spread wide behind their back.
The Space Wolf pack scrambled to open a gap in the hull, then arranged themselves into the most presentable formation they could manage on short notice, every one of them dropping to one knee to receive that approaching figure in proper salutation.
---o---
Thunk.
The sound of feet touching deck.
And a figure walked forward through the assembled formation.
Every Space Wolf bowed their head in unified salute. Even the most stubbornly independent of them -- after everything they had just survived and witnessed together -- could not refuse to acknowledge this greatness.
Besides. They had something they needed to ask.
They had brought the Space Wolves' Dreadnought Ancient back aboard their ship.
That Ancient was, regardless of what else could be said, a Dreadnought of the Star of Trailblaze Chapter -- not one of theirs. Without the Lord's explicit permission, they could not take that Ancient with them.
Zhou Ye had come for this same reason. Loose ends to handle. Specifically, whatever the Space Wolves believed they had learned about his identity -- particularly the "Primarch" classification -- that was something he needed to address carefully.
The Primarch label he absolutely could not afford to let stand.