"If they enter firing range, don't let them approach — open fire immediately. Make it clear to everyone: these are not friendlies. They are corrupted traitors."
"Yes, Warmaster."
Four star fortresses held position above Prospero. Two Abyssal-class battleships, three Gloriana-class battleships, and nearly twenty-five hundred capital ships had trained their weapons on the 'Space Wolves' ahead. If they dared approach, annihilating fire was what awaited them.
Magnus looked at the figures on the display — shapes already warped beyond recognition by Warp corruption — and couldn't understand how this had come to be. What had happened to Russ and the others?
But while Magnus was focused on the orbital engagement above, a dark crimson figure arrived on Prospero itself, bringing an entire Legion with him.
They simply appeared directly before Magnus. The two towering figures at the front brought him to a complete standstill.
"Leman? Russ — is that you?"
Magnus stared at the ten-metre daemon-Primarch — horns bristling from its head and shoulders, its body twisted into something that was barely a Space Wolf anymore, something more akin to a werewolf.
Magnus could barely believe that thing was Leman Russ. There was nothing left of the man — every part of him, inside and out, had been thoroughly saturated by the Lord of Change.
And the Lion — what had happened to him? Why did that crimson armour radiate such a blasphemous aura? Was that still the first son of the Emperor, Primarch of the First Legion?
But 'the Lion' gave Magnus no time to process this. Having absorbed the bulk of the Four Gods' combined power, he was something entirely different now.
He had sacrificed tens of thousands of Dark Angels to purchase this power. He had already succeeded in killing 'Horus' and grievously wounding the Emperor. And then, unexpectedly, the Four Gods had opened negotiations again — had poured everything they had into pulling him across to this reality.
He still wasn't entirely sure what was in this world that was worth Chaos paying such a price. But since he was here, he would kill Horus and the False Emperor with his own hands. Again.
Those two bastards.
Stealing the status and glory that should have been his. The Dark Angels had sacrificed so much and been so completely overlooked. Unforgivable.
Having come into contact with Chaos prematurely because of Rangdan and Astelan, 'the Lion's' mind had been thoroughly warped — but Chaos had never anticipated that even in his madness, the Lion's will would remain so utterly, purely itself.
This gave the Chaos side a headache. But it didn't matter — the more chaos the better. Let it spread. Go, Chaos Warmaster. Unleash your fury.
And so 'the Lion' struck precisely at one of the Emperor's most critically important backup resources.
He glanced at 'Russ' beside him — the Wolf King who had stumbled into the Warp of Change through his own miscalculation, the once-formidable beast now barely a fraction of his former self, reduced to a daemon prince under the Lord of Change's dominion. The contrast was, it had to be said, quite remarkable.
In truth, the Lion had been somewhat careless this time around. The original plan had been a direct seizure of Magnus, followed by the humiliation of the Emperor. He hadn't expected the fleet here to be this substantial.
So the Four Gods hadn't lied. Because of Perturabo, this Imperium was genuinely different.
He would have to be careful. His side couldn't afford to be reckless, or they'd find themselves used as cannon fodder.
Better to let that barely-functional beast do the pathfinding. Honestly, this entire collection of individuals — 'the Lion' was almost embarrassed to share the label of 'brother' with them. And yet apparently they were.
Chaos was dangerous enough, but this group of brothers was simply too foolish.
'Russ' caught sight of his enemy right in front of him and charged before the Lion could say a word — his psychic power erupting, his body surging to the scale of an Emperor-class Titan, hurling himself directly at Magnus.
The 'Dark Angels' and 'Space Wolves' began their assault on Prospero simultaneously. Most of the Thousand Sons were still in high orbit and had no time to return.
Magnus threw everything he had into a full psychic surge, matching 'Russ' in size, and two colossal entities began battering each other across the surface of Prospero — channelling the most fearsome psychic power imaginable into the most primal kind of violence.
Both were warriors who charged at the front in any battle, and this fratricidal clash was no different — ferocious in exactly the way both of them always were.
'Russ' drove his fist into Magnus's face. Magnus didn't dodge — he took the blow clean, then closed the distance immediately, right hand seizing one of the great horns on 'Russ's' left shoulder, wrenching with a roar until it snapped, then driving the broken horn directly into 'Russ's' shoulder blade.
'Russ' let out a pained howl, then forced through the agony — his arm, now fully transformed into a wolf's claw, plunged through Magnus's left chest and tore away a massive chunk of flesh.
Both of them staggered back a few steps, then roared and came at each other again.
In the end, Magnus — marginally outmatched in pure technique by a Wolf King whose muscle memory ran bone-deep — found his focus broken as more and more Thousand Sons dropped back down to Prospero's surface only to be overwhelmed in sheer numbers by the 'Dark Angels' and 'Space Wolves.' In that split second of distraction, the Wolf King's jaws locked around his neck.
Even as Magnus, trying to force the jaws open, began struggling against the pain, he felt himself being hoisted high into the air — and then brought crashing down across 'Russ's' raised knee.
A familiar crack. Magnus's spine snapped.
The psychic might sustaining his enlarged form collapsed instantly. Looking at Prospero already burning around him, Magnus fought to rise again — but 'Russ' was already standing over him.
Magnus's blood and 'Russ's' blue blood ran together, dripping from the wolf's claw, spattering into the dust and raising small puffs of ash where they landed.
"Hgh..."
Not even words anymore?
Magnus didn't understand how his brothers had come to this state. There was nothing he could do to stop any of it — he could only watch his sons be slaughtered, watch Prospero burn, and watch the thing that was barely Russ anymore pace slowly toward him.
"Enough."
'The Lion's' voice came from behind 'Russ.'
"Take him. Prepare to join 'Dorn' in the assault on Terra."
But 'Russ' ignored him entirely. Right now, all he wanted was to kill the enemy in front of him with his own hands.
"I said — enough!"
The Lion seized one of the horns on 'Russ's' wolf-head and physically hauled him upright.
The Chaos Warmaster would not allow anyone to challenge his authority. He also couldn't fathom why the Lord of Change's champion was a barely-coherent animal.
"Have those Horrors and Lords of Change completely addled your brain?"
'The Lion' snapped off one of Russ's horns and drove it into his skull, then hurled him aside.
He caught him again with a psychic grip and closed it around his throat.
"Get your head clear, or go back to your Warp of Change and spend the rest of eternity as your master's obedient lapdog. On call whenever whistled for."
"Is that understood?"
'Russ' looked back at him with naked hatred — but said nothing to the Lion's face, and could only look down at Magnus collapsed on the ground.
'The Lion's' character had shifted so completely that Magnus found him entirely unreadable.
But he knew. His own fate from here was not going to be good.
"The Warmaster will avenge me."
"Say that again once I've slit his throat."
But at that moment, a furious volley of bolt rounds came in from a distance, scattering clusters of 'Dark Angels' and 'Space Wolves' into fragments. 'Russ' erupted in blood. Even 'the Lion' was forced to raise the Dark Shield to block.
Magnus's form vanished.
"Then come and slit my throat right now. Let's see whether I reduce you to powder first, or whether your masters decide to invest a little more in you before you manage it."
A figure appeared before them — the scale of a Warlord-class Titan.
Its weapon systems were several times more numerous than an Emperor-class Titan's.
The Abominable Intelligence cohorts were mobilising simultaneously, descending from low orbit. More and more Thousand Sons were returning.
Perturabo dispensed with words and charged directly at 'the Lion' and 'Russ.' 'Russ' surged with psychic power, swelling again to his enormous size, and charged back.
Perturabo's heavy armour hit him head-on and reduced 'Russ' to a blue haze of blood, banished straight back to the Warp of Change, Perturabo's momentum unbroken throughout — like a man who had run through a stray dog in the road.
'The Lion's' blade met Perturabo's Iron Fist. The Lion was completely overmatched.
Perturabo's heavy weapons made 'the Lion' look thoroughly ragged. A large hole had been punched clean through his left chest.
So he'd been a little overconfident. This Perturabo was wrong somehow — no wonder Chaos had invested so heavily this time.
'The Lion' had no choice. He disengaged from the fight, used his ability, and left. A shame the strategic objective hadn't been achieved, but it was fine — this reality wasn't one that could be changed by Perturabo alone.
When the time came, that barely-functional beast and 'Dorn' could be the ones to fight this Perturabo.
"Traitor — I will hunt you to the edge of the galaxy, grind your bones to dust, and erase you from the depths of the Warp itself. And I'll make sure your masters go with you."
Perturabo's volcano cannon rounds struck where 'the Lion' had been standing — but he was already gone. The encirclement Perturabo had established beforehand couldn't contain the Lion at all.
Perturabo hadn't anticipated this. He'd only come this way in the first place because there happened to be a Webway gate near Magnus, figured he'd stop by and check — and found a catastrophe already in progress.
Other people might not know, but he certainly did.
Where exactly had the Four Gods found these people? How much had this cost them? Could they even sustain the bill?
Damn it. These shameless bastards.
Perturabo was genuinely at a loss. He'd just been thinking the Imperium was now essentially unassailable, and Chaos had pulled this out.
"Warmaster — Father, he..."
Ahriman came running. Magnus had lost consciousness from his wounds. Prospero had taken catastrophic damage. He was frightened.
"Take your father. Use the Webway gate and get back to Terra. I'll open the entry point. Go now and we'll deal with everything else later — Terra is the only place that's relatively safe right now."
"Yes, Warmaster."
"You failed."
Looking at 'the Lion's' somewhat dishevelled state, 'Horus' wore an expression of faint mockery. Behind him, 'Fulgrim' and the others had the look of people enjoying the spectacle.
"Then it's your turn. 'Dorn' will open a breach in the Sol System's defensive line for you."
"You want me to be your vanguard? To scout ahead for you?"
Even with his mind no longer fully his own, he wasn't a fool.
'The Lion' didn't particularly care. 'Horus' with his weakness exposed was trivially easy to manage.
"The False Emperor is yours. No one will compete with you for him. When the moment requires it, I'll lend you a hand."
If he weren't currently injured, 'the Lion' genuinely wanted to show this group of people who seemed to have had their brains scrambled by whatever they'd taken what a real Chaos Warmaster looked like.
"Go. And remember what you've promised."
'Horus' looked at the gold ring in his hand — the one artefact that hadn't been touched by Chaos's corruption — his expression turning distant and transfixed.
The early-onset dementia had resumed. Everyone present could see it at a glance.
Since emerging from the Delos Temple, the Warmaster had become erratic and unpredictable, his clarity coming and going — but this ring had become the one thing he could still recall with perfect clarity.
'Abaddon' and the others watched with growing urgency. If Terra wasn't taken soon, Father's condition would deteriorate further.
This needed to be resolved quickly. So even if they were being used as weapons by someone else's hand, Horus's sons didn't mind. Father couldn't wait.
As for the other Legions — what did it matter if they were cannon fodder? Dead to the last man was fine by them.
"What is going on? Why have Leman and the others become like this?"
At the Webway entrance, Magnus asked weakly.
"Those aren't our brothers. Chaos bled itself dry pulling them here from somewhere else. They're here to wreck this universe."
"This is a high-stakes gamble. If they lose, they die. If we lose, the Imperium falls, the Emperor and I become something like them, humanity is exterminated, and nothing living remains except perhaps a handful of you."
Perturabo didn't claim to fully understand everything Chaos had done — but the outcome, roughly, was clear enough.
He didn't believe pulling those people from another dimension and sustaining them here cost nothing. Someone like 'the Lion' required the Gods to pump power directly into him, and almost certainly not just one such individual — many.
The Four Gods were probably utterly spent right now. No wonder the Warp had been so quiet recently — those bastards had all gone to ground, hiding so he wouldn't find them and come knocking.
Which meant his side had probably been hit at multiple points simultaneously. Magnus might not even be the first or the worst of it.
Which meant — the others?
Lorgar.
Something clicked in Perturabo's mind and his expression shifted.
Verithe looked at the strange Astartes before her, uncertain whether these people were her brothers or not — their presence carried nothing but evil and wrongness.
"Who are you?"
Verithe couldn't believe these were Word Bearers. Her brothers would never carry that kind of blasphemous taint.
One of the 'Word Bearers' stepped forward. He was very tall — standing before Verithe, he made her look like a child by comparison.
He removed his helm. That face, covered in scripture, was suffused with Chaos's corruption.
But looking at the intact temples of Colchis and the churches of Calth still standing undamaged, and at the people whose expressions carried both belief in the Emperor and confusion about themselves, he found himself suddenly adrift.
Was this truly what Father had wanted to pursue?
Then what had their rebellion been for?