Just as the training ground had already descended into complete chaos, Perturabo could no longer tolerate this farce any longer.
His massive psychic power froze the entire scene. The great theatre fell instantly silent.
"What do you think you're doing, brother?"
Fulgrim and his companions had been performing at their most passionate moment, riding high on emotion and energy, when they found that time itself had been stilled around them.
The psychic pressure bore down like the thickest fortress walls of Olympia, crushing every inch of the opera house. The gilded chandeliers trembled under the invisible force, and the gorgeous light refracted through the glass gems turned cold and piercing in an instant.
The intoxication and fervor on Fulgrim's face froze solid. He could no longer maintain his elegant posture. Looking at Perturabo standing before him, his expression dark enough to drip water, something stirred in Fulgrim's chest for the first time — a nameless panic. It was a suffocating sensation he had never felt in all his long years of wallowing in vanity and the illusion of perfection.
"How long are you going to keep up this tedious performance?"
"What do you mean, brother? What tedious performance? This is—"
"Art? Perfection? Fulgrim, open your eyes and look. Look at this cage beneath your feet, built by squandering untold resources. Look at the sons around you, their souls hollowed out by vanity. Look at yourself — do you have even half the bearing of a Primarch of the Emperor's Children anymore?"
Perturabo strode forward until he stood directly before Fulgrim.
"Have you forgotten who you are? Have you forgotten what Space Marines and Primarchs are actually for?"
"You are the Emperor's son. The gene-sire of the Third Legion. The Phoenix of the Imperium!"
"The Emperor did not create you to pursue some nonsense called perfection. He has one goal and one goal only — to exterminate all xenos, to fully reclaim the galaxy, to bring all those worlds' resources back into the fold. Everything else is irrelevant."
"He created you and gave you an entire Legion so that you could prosecute the Great Crusade. Not so you could chase after some so-called perfection, not so you could earn his admiration!"
"The honour of the Emperor's Children means nothing. Your personal honour means nothing. The Emperor doesn't care! Just do your job properly as a Legion should, stop overthinking everything. You matter — but you don't matter nearly as much as you think you do."
"You weren't sent here to sing pointless anthems. You weren't sent here to study the entertainments that mortal attendants use to amuse us. You are destined to bring absolute annihilation to the Emperor's enemies across the galaxy."
Perturabo grew more impassioned as he spoke, but Fulgrim was gradually becoming furious in turn.
"You don't understand the true essence of perfection! The Emperor made us Primarchs precisely so that we would pursue the ultimate — whether in combat, art, or appearance, all of it is part of perfection! My Legion is the face of the Imperium. They deserve the most magnificent armour, the most elegant bearing, the most noble honour. Is that wrong?"
"But look at this!"
"Did the Emperor ever ask you to pursue a perfect posture? Did he ask you to chase all this flashy nonsense?"
Perturabo reached out and tore the expensive purple robe from Fulgrim's shoulders.
"To protect humanity, to bear responsibility, to uphold noble purpose, to fight for humanity's survival — that is why we exist!"
"But look at you now. You've twisted the word 'perfection' into something grotesque — into greed for vanity, into decadent excess, into a sick obsession that disregards lives and dismisses sacrifice!"
Perturabo pointed toward the Emperor's Children seated in the audience below.
"You say your Legion is the face of the Imperium — then look at them! The Emperor's Children — warriors whose individual capability is unmatched across all Legions — should be warriors who hold to their convictions in the darkest hour and fight for humanity."
"And what are they now? They wear armour encrusted with gold and gems, they mimic your hollow elegance. There is no martial vigilance in their eyes, no conviction to protect anyone — only the worship of vanity, only infatuation with extravagance!"
"Where is the perfect Phoenix who refused to give up even when his sons suffered the Blight, who still fought and bled through the Great Crusade? Where is the Fulgrim who used to hoist a little girl onto his shoulders to greet the cheers of the people? Can you find him again?"
"When will you understand — a soul that faces its difficulties and inner failings with courage, that never yields before temptation and suffering, is a million times more perfect than this polished exterior of yours and this garish opera house!"
"Perfection was never something you could dress yourself into, or talk yourself into. Do you think the perfect tactics you pursue on the battlefield constitute perfection? Do you think maintaining your appearance and image at every moment throughout the Imperium constitutes perfection?"
"Stop being so naive. What the Emperor thinks and expects doesn't matter in the slightest. What truly matters has only ever been your Legion, and how many human lives you have saved, and how those people live. That is what matters. Nothing else."
But Fulgrim hadn't taken in a single word. His body trembled slightly, fists clenched, that beautiful androgynous face twisted with a deranged intensity.
"That was the past! The Great Crusade advances smoothly now — we no longer need to claw and bleed like we once did. We deserve to enjoy our glory, to pursue a higher plane of beauty!"
"You live your whole life inside wars and fortifications. You don't understand. You will never understand that spiritual richness is more important than cold warfare!"
"You don't understand what a perfect being the Father is, how great his expectations of us are, how much he values our Legion. The Imperial Eagle is our honour, and that feeling — you will probably never know it."
"I am the Emperor's son. I am the perfection of the Imperium…"
Fulgrim's words became somewhat incoherent, but Perturabo cut him off bluntly.
"Your so-called spiritual richness — is that spending precious resources to build this useless, decorative opera house? Is it letting your sons throw their lives away on the battlefield in pursuit of some so-called tactical perfection and stylistic brilliance? Is it letting the people of Chemos live under a suffocating yoke, forcing themselves into a perfect posture at every moment, unable to freely express even joy or sorrow or grief? Fulgrim, this isn't spiritual richness. This is spiritual numbness. You've been blinded by vanity. You've lost sight of what's important."
"You've led the Emperor's Children down the wrong path! War is brutal. It was never a stage for you to perform perfection upon."
"You've made them forget their duty as Astartes. The perfection you pursue has made them arrogant and vain."
"They look down on the roughness of other Legions, look down on the frailty of mortals — but they've forgotten that without the sacrifices of mortal auxiliary forces, without the blood shed by their brother Legions, all their so-called magnificence and glory would have nowhere to stand!"
"The Great Crusade was never elegant art. It is built on blood and sacrifice, enacted through responsibility and commitment. You've turned war into a performance stage and your Legion into props for your display. That is the greatest insult and desecration of a warrior — the greatest betrayal of the Emperor!"
Perturabo took one step closer until they were nearly face to face. The psychic pressure receded slightly, yet somehow felt heavier still. Watching the struggle beginning to surface in Fulgrim's eyes, his tone shifted — earnest now, no longer relentlessly combative.
"Brother. I'll admit I may not have the right to speak to you this way. But I'm trying to correct my own mistakes too. You have the ability to lead your Legion toward something better."
"Let go of your obsession. You don't have to keep suppressing yourself like this. You have always had better choices available to you. There is no such thing as true perfection — not even the Emperor is exempt."
"The person who dares to face difficulty and their own inner failings head-on — that is true perfection, true strength. It lies in the soul that never yields before temptation and suffering."
"Cast it all away and begin again, brother. When I next see you, I hope you'll have risen from the ashes renewed."
Perturabo embraced Fulgrim. Then, in the moment Fulgrim stood there stunned and motionless, Perturabo and his men vanished.
By the time Fulgrim came back to himself, not a single Iron Warrior remained among the audience. Nothing had visibly changed — the civilians and his sons were still cheering and calling out to him.
But Fulgrim stopped.
For reasons he couldn't explain, something itched on his face. He reached up to touch it. A tear slid from his pale, slender fingers.
"So, would someone care to explain to me exactly what happened here?"
Aboard the Iron Blood, staring at Dantioch and Berossus looking as though they'd nearly died of poisoning, Perturabo's expression was darker than the bottom of a pot.
The members of his guard unit explained the circumstances to their father, though even they could barely believe the reason — even having witnessed it firsthand.
"You're telling me that an Astartes cooked a meal, and then that meal put your commanding officer and your first company captain flat on their backs near death?"
Perturabo picked up the medical report. It read, plainly: Severe toxic infiltration throughout the body. Immediate surgery to replace all organs is recommended.
Looking at the two of them — now undergoing full organ replacement and concurrent Huscarl conversion procedures — Perturabo found himself at a complete loss for words.
"Was the one who cooked for them someone called Akurduana?"
"Yes."
"In the future — don't spar with him. And don't eat anything he cooks. Understood?"
"Understood."
Perturabo , thoroughly speechless, sank into his chair. He had no idea whether his dressing-down of Fulgrim today had accomplished anything, and now he'd come back to this.
Perturabo never imagined he had any particular gift for charming people — he was no Emperor, and he had no idea where that damned psychic charisma was supposed to come from.
For now, he'd better return to sorting out his sons' problems first. Get his own Legion's issues under control before worrying about anything else.
Who knew what humanity would look like further down the road. Nearly all hope now rested on the Emperor and Vulkan. What Perturabo most wanted right now was to make progress duplicating the captured Necron technology and what he'd acquired from the Squats.
In the physical universe, technology was king. The ideative force of the Warp had its limits — not even the Emperor could go toe-to-toe with the Necrons head-on in the materium right now.
That was the reality. The Warp, as a resource, was fundamentally impoverished. Even Perturabo himself couldn't wage a war against the Necrons in realspace at present.
The Warp's power was illusory. Chaos might look impressive, but when you got down to it, the reason it was so formidable in this era was simply because there had been far too much warfare for far too long.
Otherwise, how had the Eldar enjoyed such a long golden age? Why had the Age of Gold never feared Chaos corruption?
If the physical universe could remain stable indefinitely, Chaos was actually quite manageable — it simply wouldn't be capable of stirring up real trouble.
But time was running out. Perturabo was only now coming to appreciate why the Emperor had always been in such relentless urgency. Time truly waited for no one. In the blink of an eye he'd already claimed nearly a third of the Eastern Fringe, taken substantial territory in the Obscurus and Tempestus sectors — and yet the genuine accomplishments were pitifully few.
Civilizational development was lagging badly. Much of the resources came through his own brutal extraction efforts in the regions beyond the Astronomican.
Even without the recall prompted by the need for internal reforms, Perturabo had been considering suspending the Great Crusade for a period. However urgent the timeline, he was willing to pause — he'd even consider suggesting all his brothers pause too. It would be worth it.
If worst came to worst, he'd throw himself at the Four Gods and hold the line personally. He would give up this physical vessel — it didn't matter, he'd left enough contingencies, he could return to the material universe afterward anyway.
As long as the Emperor or Vulkan succeeded — even one of them — humanity's road ahead would be clear.
Especially on his end: his failsafes were extensive. Even if the Webway on Terra were destroyed, he'd just find somewhere else. Did he, the Lord of Iron, fear a demonic incursion?
Even if every Webway gate across the entire galaxy were obliterated, he could dispatch his daemon armies to seal every last breach.
As long as the Four didn't intervene personally, at worst there'd be some oversight failures that might let a few rogue daemons slip through — and so what?
If it weren't for Perturabo not wanting to draw the Four's attention to their material-realm operations prematurely, he'd have already sealed the Eye of Terror. What was a little Chaos to him?
The situation remained grim, though. The Great Crusade might be glorious, but the hidden landmines planted throughout were enormous. Perturabo was almost certain that even without Chaos corruption, there would still be brothers who turned to rebellion.
Not all his brothers were overgrown children. And not every overgrown child was incapable of growth.
The Imperium's mess was already substantial. If not for Perturabo , Guilliman, and the others tirelessly cultivating the Eastern Fringe all this time, the Imperium would be struggling enormously just to collect taxes.
The Obscurus region in particular — "rich in talent" was putting it generously. Nearly half the Imperium's primary fleet strength was concentrated there, and the bizarre and dangerous elements were no fewer than on the Eastern Fringe — likely more.
Despite Perturabo's strained relationship with the Emperor, fleet support and weapons supply had never been cut off. And if they were — where else would the Imperium pull from? It would just mean squeezing the common people harder.
All told, the Emperor's eventual fate was not going to be pretty — no matter how grand his original intentions, the harm done along the way wasn't something that could simply be undone. The departure of figures like Euphrati Keeler and others was already telling enough.
By the time they returned to Olympia, Dantioch and Berossus were already awake.
Feeling the power surging through their bodies — power that seemed to fill them to the very brim — both were still somewhat bewildered. Could that meal truly have had some miraculous effect?
When the Logis Engine explained the full sequence of events, both men felt a wave of cold dread wash over them. That was a meal a person cooked?
How had he managed to poison an Astartes who had undergone an upgraded proto-Huscarl surgery with a plate of food and nearly kill them?
Nobody knew why. Not even Perturabo. There was no taint of Nurgle corruption, no daemon interference — it was simply poison.
But where, precisely, was the poison? Unknown. The Logis Engine could not determine it.
The ingredients were entirely normal. So why, when combined, did they produce something capable of felling a proto-Huscarl Astartes?
This was destined to remain one of the great unsolved mysteries.
"Magnus? What's he doing here? Shouldn't he be resting on Prospero? What does he want with me?"
When the Logis Engine delivered the report, Perturabo instinctively had an uneasy premonition about the intentions of this particular scatterbrained brother.
If there was one brother who left Perturabo most at a loss, it was absolutely the Red Pony — no contest.
Transcendent intellect. Staggering wisdom. And then there was his son Ahriman — father and son, each more of a walking disaster than the other.
Magnus was warm and outgoing by nature, and in truth most of his brothers were remarkably tolerant of him — quite a few had genuine, close relationships with him.
The problem was that Magnus's scatterbrained streak was something nobody wanted to deal with. How to put it — you couldn't exactly call him incompetent. In psychic ability and knowledge, he was without peer in all the Imperium save the Emperor himself.
Yet his brothers simply could not fathom why someone so brilliant consistently seemed to summon extraordinary courage when confronted by unknown dangers — and used that courage to do something spectacularly reckless.
Being a Primarch didn't make you immortal. A single volcano cannon round didn't care whether you were a mortal trooper or a Primarch.
Magnus's death-defying pursuit of knowledge had eventually pushed everyone's patience past its limit.
Even his closest companions — the Khan and Perturabo— had begun openly reprimanding him.
But right now, there was still time to course-correct.
Perturabo sent no reply to Magnus. Instead, he simply appeared aboard the Photep directly.
Magnus was inside his pyramid reading when Perturabo arrived. The Flesh Change afflicting his sons had always tormented him. He'd been attempting to find methods to contain the genetic mutation, but even now he had nothing to show for it.
The Thousand Sons were nominally prosecuting their Crusade at present, but in reality they were more or less recuperating. When they did see action, it was mostly against mid- or small-scale forces — Magnus would descend, unleash devastating power, "acquire" the local libraries and repositories of knowledge, and depart.
How could the Thousand Sons mount a serious Great Crusade when they were still struggling just to keep the Flesh Change from killing their warriors outright?
When Perturabo materialized aboard the ship, what he found was a deeply brooding Magnus. He was paging through a tome on forbidden sorcerous rites, hoping to find something among these more extreme psychic techniques that might help his sons.
"I recall the Emperor saying we weren't to engage deeply with the Warp. Looks like you didn't listen to a single word."
The sudden voice sent Magnus jolting to his feet, an enormous surge of psychic power instantly primed to erupt.
But the moment he recognized the visitor, he lowered his guard and returned to his usual self.
"Brother."
"The Warp is dangerous. You're always plunging into it without the faintest caution. One day it will cost you dearly."
Magnus, however, was clearly unconcerned. Life had always come easily to him, and he'd consistently approached the unknown with curiosity rather than fear.
And his encounters with what he perceived as "friendly entities" in the Warp only deepened his favorable view of it.
"What brings you here? Shouldn't you be resting properly on Olympia instead of wandering around? Has your Legion grown enough to resume the Great Crusade?"
Magnus simply gave a slightly bashful smile, then explained his purpose.
"I heard that the Maelstrom region once had deep contact with the Warp, and now that you've conquered it, brother — I was wondering whether there might be remnants of knowledge here. Some texts. I want to know if anything within them might offer a way to treat my sons' condition."
That was the real reason Magnus had come.
"Do you think my Legion would retain blasphemous texts like that?"
"Your sons' problem is the Flesh Change. Why not go to the Emperor? He has the finest Biologis masters available to address exactly this. And here you are, foolishly searching for answers in the Warp. After all these years, have you truly never noticed that the Warp is filled with danger? Why would you seek treatment for your sons this way?"
Perturabo's rapid-fire words caught Magnus off guard.
"Brother, you may be misunderstanding things. The Warp isn't as terrifying as you all imagine. Inside there are—"
He reflexively launched into that same familiar speech. He'd said these words to others more times than he could count.
He'd always believed that educating humanity about the Warp was a matter of great importance. Without it, people would always lack sufficient understanding of what he considered a priceless realm, and they'd never choose to explore it.
He, Magnus, the fifteenth son of the Emperor, would take it upon himself to be the pioneer who brought that understanding to all of humanity. He would—
"Save it. You really think you can impress me on the subject of psychic power? The Warp entities I've encountered make the ones you've seen look trivial. The Emperor indulges you and keeps you from knowing too much — he even issued prohibitions — and still nothing has stopped you from exploring."
"Brother, there's nothing wrong with being curious. But could you please engage your brain before you act? Why is it that sometimes, even when you've already sensed something is wrong, you press forward and explore anyway?"
"Even if you insist on exploring, why not file a report with the Emperor or Malcador first? With two top-tier psykers accompanying you, wouldn't your exploration of the Warp be far safer? They might even help you unravel questions that have eluded you for years."
"Why won't you do that?"
Perturabo genuinely struggled to understand how these brothers thought. If the Emperor told them not to dabble in psychic power and they did it anyway — what exactly would the Emperor actually do to them?
As long as the Great Crusade wasn't being delayed, the Emperor would leave you virtually alone to do as you pleased.
Take Lorgar as proof — the Imperial Truth his Word Bearers were spreading had already mutated into something barely distinguishable from an extremist religion, and had the Emperor ever actually reined Lorgar in?
Once Crusade efficiency went up, the Emperor's tolerance for his sons' eccentricities increased enormously, because after all, each of them was a remarkably effective tool.
"Brother, the Warp really isn't as terrifying as you all think."
Magnus gave a helpless, amused smile — because he had genuinely found, within the Warp, a "secret sanctuary" that he'd kept hidden from both the Emperor and his brothers for years. Even his sons each had a little sprite that had come to them from that place.
Those little creatures were delightful. Strange and spirited. In ordinary times they kept Magnus company and fed his emotional needs; when he was sorrowful or discouraged, they would gather around and help lift his spirits.
These creatures were his and his sons' most loyal companions. Because of them, Magnus had always felt at ease in the Warp, bold enough to explore even its more dangerous corners.
"I'm curious about something. What is it that makes you so certain the Warp is safe? What makes you so willing — even eager — to pursue this forbidden knowledge?"
"I want to understand how you have the nerve to face things you don't understand at all with such equanimity. Can you tell me?"
Perturabo stepped closer to Magnus. There was a subtle pressure in that proximity — entirely different from what Magnus had felt before his Father.
"You genuinely want to know?"
"Yes."
Magnus considered it briefly. This was his brother, after all. What was the harm in showing a brother a bit of his world? If it eventually helped build support for the wider cause of psychic education, all the better.
"Then follow me."
Magnus made a casual gesture, and a massive psychic translocation gate materialized before the two of them.
Magnus led Perturabo through it, into the place he'd always kept concealed from the Emperor and his brothers — his "secret garden."
It was beautiful here. Ethereal. Little winged sprites drifted through the air, spinning and tumbling, then clustering around Magnus, playing and frolicking with him.
"This is the 'garden' I found inside the Warp, brother. Well? Does it shatter your preconceptions? There are friendly beings in the Warp."
Magnus adored them — mischievous and full of life. And sometimes they would keep his sons company too. By now every one of the Thousand Sons could summon one or two of these little sprites to their side.
Magnus glanced over at Perturabo , who seemed somewhat dazed. He assumed Perturabo was simply reacting to seeing the Warp's true face for the first time — a reasonable response given how little most of his brothers engaged with it.
It was natural. Magnus himself had been stunned the first time he'd found this place — though perhaps not quite as stunned as this particular brother seemed to be.
What Magnus didn't know was that the moment he had opened the Warp gate, Perturabo had already detected something — a presence deeply familiar and deeply repugnant to him.
That damned Blue Bird.
This was no "garden." Riddled with blue-tinged rifts and bleached remnants of bones that carpeted the ground, this place was thick with Horrors and Lords of Change working diligently to ingratiate themselves with Magnus from every direction.
Those "little sprites" orbiting Magnus — Perturabo saw through them with barely a glance.
Weak Warp entities. Some perhaps possessed a kernel of genuine goodwill. But good? Not remotely.
And he had to hand it to the Blue Bird — years of patient, undetected cultivation, slowly, thoroughly hooking Magnus. By now Magnus was probably already marked in ways he didn't even know.
"You're certain this is your secret 'garden'?"
Perturabo looked at Magnus with a peculiar expression — because he'd also spotted traces of Nurgle's daemons lurking here, though how Tzeentch had gotten hold of those was anyone's guess.
"Yes, brother. This is my home within the Warp. They're—"
"Enough."
Perturabo cut him off.
And then he felt it — his eyes beginning to burn with a sharp, stabbing pain. He couldn't help covering them.
"Take another look. Tell me whether the sprites still seem adorable. Tell me whether this place still feels like home."
Perturabo stood beside Magnus. Magnus had not yet recovered from the stinging sensation when his vision cleared — and he saw something that shattered everything he'd understood about this place.
There was no garden. No sprites. Only hell.
The ground was a sickening, indescribable expanse of blue-tinged rifts and staring eyes. Horrors and Lords of Change cavorted and schemed at the edges, stirring the chaos. And worst of all — Nurgle's daemons, slick and wet, straining and lurching, ready to hurl themselves at Magnus and defile him at any moment.
"This — this is fake. Isn't it, brother? Tell me this is fake."
Something was wrong with Magnus. His head was splitting.
"You've been deceived all along. A terrifying presence that plays with the Warp cast an illusion over your psychic perception within it, twisting everything you saw toward the beautiful."
"It constructed this place as an utterly concealed pocket, and nearly every single day it has been watching you — peering at you in secret, watching you laugh and play with these rogue daemons and Horrors in perfect contentment."
"You walked right into the trap. The entire reason you've never come to harm all these years has only one explanation: something far more terrifying has had its eye on you."
At that moment, Perturabo's Daemonic Forge materialized at the location. Tzeentch wasted no time — It arrived almost immediately.
Magnus's instincts fired at once. Two immense, terrifying forces had manifested around him.
The surrounding environment was wrenched apart. He found himself inside a vast enclosed space.
His brother Perturabo stood beside him, concentrating intensely on something. The space around Magnus shuddered continuously.
But then, in the very next instant, he saw them — within this enclosed space, countless tiny black specks beyond counting.
"Those are daemon-thralls. My greater daemons oversee them as they work."
"This is the true face of the Warp, brother. Do you see the grotesque, alien horror of those creatures on the assembly lines? That is what the 'sprites' you've been interacting with all this time actually look like."
"What you saw before was only what they wanted you to see. You were fooled so completely you practically gift-wrapped yourself and walked through their front door."
"Now It has come to contest me for you. It's raging outside this very moment."
Magnus said nothing. Watching those daemons being lashed before him, shrieking with each blow, he felt his world collapsing.
He sank slowly to the floor, his red skin fading toward something pale and translucent. If all of that had been false — then what was real?
His sons' Flesh Change. The regions of the Warp he'd explored before. The power he'd obtained from those journeys. What did any of that actually amount to?
What was left that was real?
Magnus didn't know. His mind was chaos. The galaxy's most well-read Primarch was lost and bewildered for the first time in his life.
And Perturabo, watching his brother in that state, said nothing further. He was too busy outside — trading blows with the Blue Bird, and holding nothing back.
This engagement with Tzeentch was unlike any before. Power more savage than even Khorne's hurled itself against the outer shields of the Daemonic Forge in wave after brutal wave.
It could not allow Magnus to be taken. No matter how much it shifted and changed, It could not allow this Primarch — prepared so far in advance — to be seized away.
But Perturabo didn't strike back. Because he knew the real cavalry was already on its way.
Sure enough, a disturbance this enormous could not escape the notice of Chaos or the Emperor alike.
When Khorne perceived that Tzeentch and the Lord of Iron were already locked in open combat, Perturabo heard a thunderous roar break overhead.
Khorne's great blade flared into existence and came crashing down toward Tzeentch.