By the time 'Horus' received the news and arrived with Aximand, 'Abaddon' had already been put into a Dreadnought.
With his upper body almost entirely destroyed, he would die quickly without treatment — and 'Horus' still didn't know what had happened.
On a day when 'Horus' was somewhat more lucid than usual, he had been trying to gather his thoughts and think clearly — and barely a few minutes in, news like this had arrived.
'Abaddon' had been sent to open a new route to Terra. He'd had the most elite First Company with him, plus his personal Justaerin. How could he come back on the verge of death with catastrophic wounds?
Where were the fleet elements? Where were the veterans and the Justaerin? Where were his most capable sons?
"What happened?"
Nobody could answer him. 'Abaddon' hadn't regained consciousness. Even inside a Dreadnought, this level of injury didn't mean he'd recover awareness quickly.
The Sons of Horus kept their heads down. The Mournival didn't dare breathe too loudly. They didn't dare meet their father's eyes — their powerful psychic senses perceived that almost-entirely-distorted face, the indescribable thing packed full of the power of all four Gods, and they couldn't bring themselves to acknowledge that this was their father.
A son had no reason to fear a father. But that father was no longer the Warmaster of the Wolf. He was no longer the Warmaster who had once tolerated his sons.
On this day, 'Horus's' episodes of madness and dementia grew more severe. Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, the 'Dark Angels' and the Fists of Pain began gradually eroding the Sons of Horus.
Similar symptoms were appearing across several other Legions. Not all the deployed forces were simply cannon fodder — some had effectively come to serve under 'Lion's' or 'Dorn's' fleets, simply because their Primarch wasn't present. They knew they'd been set up, but for the sake of survival they had no choice but to accept it.
This only deepened the chaos on the rebel side.
In the Imperial Palace on Terra, everyone was busy preparing defences. Massive resource flows were being directed through correspondence and Astropath messages to every corner of the Imperium.
Countless Administratum officials were working inhuman hours. Even some Space Marines had been pressed into administrative tasks to fill gaps. Even Malcador was haggard and skeletal, looking as though he might expire in the Administratum at any moment.
There was no choice — it was too chaotic. The traitors had severed information flows. Forced back to the administrative efficiency that resembled primitive methods after being dependent on the logic engines for so long — if this went on, the Imperium would collapse under its own weight before the traitors even reached the walls.
Ferrus and Dorn spent their days ceaselessly directing Legion forces and fleet elements. Every moment brought news at an astronomical scale. They were essentially welded to their respective command positions.
Most of the battle reports were victories. But the worlds described as having fallen, and some of the resilient enemy fleets, still gave them headaches.
The traitors were more difficult to deal with than anticipated. However impressive the numbers on the reports looked, Ferrus and Dorn could see at a glance that the actual situation had become severely degraded.
Even now, they didn't have a complete picture of which direction the enemy's main fleet was advancing.
The traitors scattered in every direction, executing scorched-earth policies — leaving worlds too destroyed to utilise and then vanishing back into the Warp — making it nearly impossible to estimate enemy strength from their patterns of attack.
Ferrus and Dorn had no way to break through this dynamic.
Their fleets were slow and bloated. Their understanding of Warp travel was inadequate. They were in an extremely passive position.
And yet, amid all this anxiety and frantic activity, the nominal supreme leader of humanity — the Emperor of Mankind — had essentially nothing to do.
Administrative work? He had no idea how.
Fighting? Dorn and the others refused to let him out.
So what was there? He could run some experiments. When he ran out of ideas, he could come out and drink some tea, have a cup of wine.
The Emperor would never have imagined that the retirement life he had always dreamed of — conducting research, sunbathing in his spare time — would arrive early, and under exactly these circumstances.
"By the way, my Warmaster — are you really not going to help me?"
Looking at Ollanius Pius, who was equally stretched out in a reclining chair enjoying the sunlight and a glass of Baal wine, the Emperor felt this former first Warmaster was living entirely too comfortably. The Emperor was at least running experiments — this man was just sitting here enjoying life.
"I was living a peaceful and prosperous life on Calth. You and Malcador forced me back. If Alpharius hadn't found me, I wouldn't even have known the Imperium had come to this."
"Calth has also fallen now. I can't go back. I've fought wars long enough. What's wrong with me enjoying some rest?"
"Besides, I am thinking about how to help the Imperium — but other than auxiliary—"
Ollanius hadn't finished speaking when the Emperor forcibly cut off the rest of his sentence.
"Then go help. Say the word and I can arrange a substantial fleet from Mars for you to take out."
"Do you want the Warmaster title back? I can't help with that — but if it's the Sun Lord title, that I can arrange. You lead the fleet out on campaign. What do you say?"
"No."
Ollanius refused the Emperor, picked up his wine cup, and drained the sweet grape wine in one go.
The Emperor couldn't quite make sense of this old friend anymore. Had he also become lazy and indolent like himself?
"Why? Can you really stand by and watch the Imperium fall into this kind of danger again? Humanity's existence is at stake — Chaos has launched a full-scale offensive. We need you, Oll."
But Ollanius only glanced at the Emperor — radiating psychic charisma in every direction as usual — and then turned away.
"No."
"Then what do you want in exchange? A meadow to graze sheep in retirement? Chogoris would suit you! Or if you want to go back to living the life you had on Calth — Terra's not bad either, or any of the worlds under Olympia's domain — and if we reclaim Ultramar eventually, you could go back to Calth then too."
The Emperor patiently tried to persuade his old friend to go to the front and help — but Ollanius remained unmoved. As far as he was concerned, the Imperium didn't actually need him to intervene. A crisis of this kind could be resolved without him.
The Emperor had broken his heart badly once. He'd spent the entire Great Crusade blending into auxilia forces, fighting quietly. Then the Crusade hadn't even ended before he retired — and then he heard this wretched figure had been imprisoned by his own son.
He had rushed back in a hurry, assuming he'd find some kind of political intrigue or revenge drama unfolding. But when he arrived, the Emperor was sitting on the Golden Throne eating and drinking comfortably, spending his days using psychic projections to wander hive city districts.
When the rescue party had found that, most of them had fundamentally broken down. You've been playing us for fools, you miserable creature.
This was also the thing Ollanius found most infuriating about the Emperor. Genuine compassion for humanity? Hard to claim that after this many millennia of existence — you couldn't expect emotional depth like that from an immortal who'd been alive this long.
The simple truth was: he just didn't like this wretched figure.
When Alpharius had come at the Emperor's request to ask him back, he had already decided — unless it was a genuine existential crisis, he wasn't going to act.
Just like now — following his own little whims, completely unmoved no matter how much the Emperor tried to talk him around.
Raldoron's fleet was pressing hard against 'Eidolon's' fleet ahead, bombardment continuous.
'Eidolon' had no luck either. He'd barely come out before running directly into the Blood Angels under Raldoron's command.
When he saw a fleet of nearly Legion scale, 'Eidolon's' already-clouded mind became even more confused — because Slaanesh's blessings and the pharmaceuticals had thoroughly liquefied his decision-making capacity.
So the moment he saw Raldoron's fleet — chasing stimulation and trying to make achievements for his father's approval — he issued the attack order without hesitation.
The 'Emperor's Children' had also gone fully unhinged. Various substances and self-inflicted extremes had driven them past caring. This was their moment of pursuing the absolute pinnacle of sensation.
That was how they saw it. Raldoron didn't.
In the time since being deployed, the level of degeneration and mutation among the traitors had profoundly shaken his worldview.
Were these the same cousins who had once chased honour to the point of madness?
Raldoron didn't know. The Blood Angels didn't know. None of the Legions' Astartes knew. But they all understood that killing every last one of these traitors was unquestionably the right call.
Throughout the Solar Segmentum, small-scale engagements were occurring at virtually every moment. Countless Imperial civilians and Chaos-fallen traitors were dying in these fights.
Raldoron and the others had expected this when they were deployed. But seeing the traitors in person still produced something like revulsion.
Desecration.
Only that word captured what these traitors had become.
"Commander — the enemy is moving fast. Our fire coverage can't intercept all of their vessels. They're likely attempting a boarding action."
Adjutant Alvareth spoke.
The first non-Iron Warrior to receive the Primcast surgery, he had grown considerably — in Tyrant Terminator plate he stood at two point eight metres, not dramatically smaller than Raldoron himself.
"Let them come. Have the Resentment Intelligence forces prepare counter-boarding. We hold our fleet here. Complete elimination of these traitors — if possible, take two alive for intelligence."
"Yes."
'Eidolon's' brain had been reduced to mush by pharmaceuticals and blessings.
And this was the milder end of his methods. The worse ones couldn't be described in polite language.
The depravity and chaos of his conduct was genuinely something else — 'Eidolon's' approach was unusual even by the standards of the fallen Children of the Emperor. Even the Dark Eldar would have wept in the dirt with self-acknowledged inadequacy.
Truly something else entirely.
Especially because of 'Fulgrim's' particular involvement — a large amplification device had been fitted to his throat, turning him into the most powerful Noise Marine in existence.
His technical skill wasn't the finest among the Children of the Emperor — top tier across the Legions, but not the absolute peak. But the amplifier at his throat had helped him enormously.
Whether in mass-effect or single-target ambush, it produced effects that caught opponents completely unprepared. He had used it to kill numerous loyalist hardcases.
But now, against the Blood Angels' fierce fire, his fleet had absolutely no way to fight back. If not for a speed approaching Eldar levels, they would have already been destroyed entirely.
This only made 'Eidolon' more frenzied. An enemy this powerful — the joy of breaking them from within would be exquisite. Especially the sounds the 'cousins' would make when he applied his more specialised techniques — the screaming, the begging for death — it would send him into raptures.
He was already imagining in vivid detail the expressions of horror on the 'cousins' faces, the desperate pleas for quick death, as he applied those methods to them. The dopamine cascading endlessly and the desires that could never be satisfied made him hungrier and hungrier for the "fight" to come.
He paid no attention to his fleet's losses. His purple power armour was hung with every manner of implement — some directed inward, some directed at others.
There were even deliberate structural vulnerabilities in that armour — exquisitely sensitive organs fully exposed to the outside, with pain tolerance turned off entirely.
Whether these lethal vulnerabilities sharpened his danger instincts or whether the stimulation they produced in dangerous situations enhanced his memories — it was impossible to say.
What was certain was that they had substantially reduced his ability to register genuine threats.
Which meant he didn't notice a plasma shot coming from a precise angle behind him until it detonated directly to his left.
'Eidolon' was blown sideways. Half his external organs, which had been artfully arranged on the outside of his armour, were destroyed. The transcendent sensation he'd been experiencing cut off abruptly.
When he looked up furiously to see who had fired — he found someone unexpected.
"What are you doing here?"
He watched Raldoron walk toward him, phase sword in hand, plasma gun still venting heat — though Raldoron paid it no attention, immediately raising it for a second shot.
'Eidolon' barely dodged. By the time he registered what was happening, Iron Circles and Blood Angels had completely encircled him.
Raldoron threw the plasma gun to the escort behind him and approached. The Tyrant Terminator plate had done nothing to impede his movement.
"I didn't expect to see you in this state, Eidolon."
Raldoron recognised this unrecognisable 'cousin.' The arrogance, and the idiotic self-confidence that had been visible even before any corruption — when they'd gone after the Laeran together under Horus, he'd wanted to cut this creature down then.
Then, because of the Warmaster, everyone had changed considerably, which had also changed Raldoron's perspective on many things.
He hadn't expected that his original instinct would be fulfilled today.
He'd had enough of this creature for a very long time.
"Pick up your blade. Look at me. You piece of filth."
Raldoron held his phase sword and spared 'Eidolon' not a shred of concern. A fraudulent, hollow-pretension traitor — if not for Abdemon and Vespasian having no interest in competing for status, this creature would never have risen as far as he had.
'Eidolon' produced a deranged, obsessive smile.
"Brother — you were always so irritable. If the Warmaster Horus hadn't stopped me, perhaps I would have already taken your head."
'Eidolon' was confident in his own technique. He had essentially no respect for this large figure in front of him.
"All I see is a traitor who deserves to die — a nauseating insect. Your degenerate, filthy father will be surrounded and killed soon enough. You'll all fall into boundless hell together."
"Because you are all disgusting, ugly insects."
'Eidolon' didn't care in the slightest about Raldoron insulting him — he actually enjoyed it. But insulting his father was absolutely not acceptable.
"You're asking to die. I'm going to take your skull and pull out your tongue—"
But 'Eidolon' hadn't finished when Raldoron charged. The speed was fast enough that even 'Eidolon' barely had time to react — he could only raise his rapier to parry.
The phase sword's quality was demonstrated instantly. In a single exchange, 'Eidolon's' weapon — a companion of many years — snapped apart.
The shattered rapier dissolved as a pure Warp-energy body and vanished from the ship.
Something like disgust moved through Raldoron's eyes.
"Even your weapon has been corrupted this thoroughly. You pitiful slaves."
"You broke my favourite toy — that was my companion through countless nights!"
'Eidolon's' eyes turned red instantly. The amplifier at his throat unleashed a blast of psychic-laden sound so powerful it punched through the warship's steel plating.
But a layer of blue psychic shielding flared across Raldoron's body instantly. The sonic impact produced not so much as a slight shift in his stance.
The Blood Angels and Iron Circles had prepared against psykers — the Warmaster had anticipated this long ago.
Moving faster than before, the mass of Tyrant Terminator plate slammed directly into 'Eidolon's' body. The impact force was extraordinary — even 'Eidolon's' remaining organs registered the sensation as something beyond any previous experience.
He had felt something similar once, facing a Leman Russ tank. But now, the "tank" was hitting him directly.
Both arms shattered instantly. The left shin gave way under the impact — the blood vessels simply burst. 'Eidolon' had no particular feeling about this, but in this state he had no capacity for resistance whatsoever.
For some reason, he wanted to laugh. He wanted to get in one last taunt before dying — he'd eventually be banished back to the Warp and he'd return — but Raldoron's impact had destroyed the amplifier at his throat. Purple blood and fragments were blocking his airway. He couldn't produce a sound.
His eyeballs burst like bolt rounds. The rupturing blood vessels across his entire face turned it a deep blackish colour. He wasn't dead yet. But it would be soon.
"Did you really think you deserved to stand ahead of Vespasian and the others?"
"Command — incompetent. Combat ability — inadequate. All you had was that mouth of yours, which let you stay close to your equally degenerate father. You traitors are as pathetic and contemptible as ever."
"Ignored by everyone. You betrayed the Emperor and the Imperium for that tiny scrap of pride and sense of relevance — and you had the nerve to keep shouting for the Emperor."
"Your father was rotten through. So are all of you. No bottom to how far gone you are."
"At this level of strength you dared board a fleet attack on mine. Who gave you that courage? Your master? Your false father? Or did you genuinely believe you were strong?"
"Nobody ever told you? You're actually very weak."
Raldoron didn't bother saying anything more. He put his phase sword away and walked back. His brothers were furious — this creature would receive proper attention.
The sound of chainswords rose. Blood Angels moved toward the figure 'Eidolon' had become — barely distinguishable as a person. Dozens of chainswords descended simultaneously. Moments later, what remained was banished back to the Warp.
At the outer edge of the Eye of Terror, an enormous Wolf Sword had been driven straight through Slaanesh, pinning the God through the entire body. The fierce electrical current made the deity's body tremble continuously, secreting nauseating fluids. Looking closely, you could even make out a slight rolling of the eyes.
Meanwhile — standing on Khorne's skull, bent forward, single-handedly holding the cursed giant blue bird and using it as a bludgeon against the other two — Perturabo was venting his accumulated fury without restraint. Terrifying psychic force swept through the Warp around the Eye of Terror.
Time and space in the area had completely destabilised. If Perturabo hadn't already sealed the navigation routes in the surrounding area, the temporal and spatial turbulence here would have shredded every ship in range.
He threw the big blue bird aside. Then stomped hard on Nurgle, which had by now become something resembling a very dead dog.
"Hah. Pfft."
One heavy spit directly onto Khorne's head. Then he came to stand over Nurgle — the skull already caved in by a previous massive fist strike, the enormous posterior protruding at an unfortunate angle, the Plaguefather lying here with whatever little breath remained.
He summoned the enormous stirring stick normally used for agitating thick soups. It materialised in his hand. He aligned it carefully with that particular posterior — flowing with nauseating fluids and maggots and putrid flies belonging to the Nurgling essence — and drove it in with full force.
Nurgle, having no skull left, somehow instinctively attempted to straighten what remained of its spineless mass. No sound came — but throughout the entire Warp, every daemon and every living being in the vicinity could hear something that could only be described as a catastrophic and pitiful scream.
A plasma macro-cannon manifested in the right hand. Regardless of whether the internal conditions inside Nurgle met any hygiene standards — it was inserted directly. The viscous, nauseating sensation made Perturabo nearly gag.
But then the plasma macro-cannon — immune to overheating — erupted with brilliant light from within Nurgle's body. The screaming intensified considerably.
"Bunch of mongrel dogs. Didn't think I was capable of this, did you? You all acted like being on the Chaos Star of Eight meant I was somehow afraid of you."
"Once I've sealed all of you up, I'm going back to the material universe and killing every last one of your running dogs. You'll get nothing out of this."
"Just wait until I'm stronger. Sooner or later I'm going to come in here and eat every last one of you. Then you won't be able to keep causing trouble in realspace."
Perturabo kicked hard at what remained of Nurgle, now a thoroughly nauseating puddle.
"Disgusting creature! Still trying to play the caring father? Keep performing!"
A chainsword appeared in his hand. The violently spinning chainblade was swung like an electro-prod directly onto Khorne.
"Scream! Scream! I told you to scream! Let's hear it! Can't scream anymore?"
He then produced an enormous grilling rack — the size appropriate for very large subjects — and used it to grab the now-unconscious blue bird, clamping it firmly in place. Black flames scorched from every angle, three hundred and sixty degrees of relentless heat applied to the motionless avian deity.
"Still going to be stubborn? Say it! Is everything still proceeding according to plan? Still all part of the design?"
A slap took off approximately half of the bird's head. Then the grilling rack extended, compressing the blue bird entirely inside it. The black flames rendered something that every daemon and living creature in the Warp could detect — a smell.
Words genuinely failed to describe what that smell was. The Warp had no reference point for it. This was the combustion of concepts and fundamental essence.
He walked over to Slaanesh, which was occasionally twitching, the secreted fluids having coated the entire Wolf Sword.
This time Perturabo didn't strike it.
He was worried it would enjoy that.
"You disgusting thing. Next time I will definitely eat you."