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Hiss—
When Eden received the message from Guilliman, he sucked in a cold breath. "How did the Lion run off to Vostonia ahead of schedule? That's walking into the tiger's jaws!"
That star region has already become a terrifying trap laid by the Chaos Gods, one that can devour any life that enters it.
Especially figures of the Imperium's highest ranks.
Even for him—the Savior—there's no guarantee of getting out unscathed, let alone the Lion charging in blindly. That guy is very likely to get ground into the dirt by Chaos, over and over again.
He could only hope the Lion's luck holds out long enough to endure until he and the other primarch reinforcements arrive, and that he doesn't get captured by the Chaos Gods and pumped full of foul power like Horus—turned into a cream-puff of corruption.
Just then, a shrill scream reached Eden's ears and tugged his attention away.
The scream didn't come from this reality, but from some far-off place.
It was truly miserable.
Inside the Black Throne temple, the Emperor was still huffing and puffing as he beat on Magnus. Seven psychic wolves, made manifest by His power, were leaving streaks of afterimages and showers of sparks.
Every blow landed solidly—thick, meaty thuds.
Originally, after one full round of "seven wolves," the Emperor had intended to stop.
But when He heard that the ancient Old One artifact—the Warp Shield-Borer—had been sealed by the Chaos Gods and might even be destroyed, His anger only grew.
He recalled the bitter lesson of the Webway being torn open by "Little Red," so He grabbed Magnus again and laid into him with heavy punches.
He beat Magnus until the Crimson King howled and wept on the spot.
"Sigh, Your Majesty, go easy on him…"
Eden's psychic projection by the Black Throne tried to advise, "Little Red only wrecked a part of the Webway. It's all long past.
"The kid finally managed to come home. What if You break him?"
"Ingrate! You are the one who destroyed the Imperium's Webway!"
Eden's words seemed to hit one of the Emperor's trigger phrases. He simply hoisted Magnus up for another hanging thrashing.
…???
Because of the Emperor's hanging beatdown, Magnus sank into bleak gloom—his spirit badly shaken.
Moments before, he'd been moved by Eden's attempt to speak on his behalf. That feeling evaporated in an instant.
The Crimson King even wondered if Eden was deliberately stoking the flames.
"Little Red has it rough… He didn't do it on purpose. He even risked everything to warn You back then…"
Seeing that approach fail, Eden switched rhetoric and kept trying to persuade.
But his words only doubled the Emperor's anger. He slammed Magnus to the floor and ground him into it. "How foolish you are—to accept the Chaos Gods' lies!"
Those will-charged fists made a crisp, resounding crack, again and again.
"Savior!"
Seeing Eden about to say more, Magnus shouted, half angry, half desperate:
"Enough—just stop talking! I'll agree to anything if You'll just stop!"
He felt that if Eden kept "mediating," the Emperor—infuriated past the brink—might actually kill him on the spot.
"Okay, okay, I'll stop."
Eden was a little embarrassed and waved a hand, saying no more.
He'd just reflexively used the classic "smooth-things-over" approach. Not only did it fail, it came off rather mocking to the parties involved, backfiring outright.
The main issue was that the rift between the Emperor and Magnus was too deep to be solved by words. What they needed was more emotional venting and purgation before any equilibrium could be reached.
Eden's psychic projection waited patiently.
He only spoke after the Emperor had "almost" beaten the anger out. "I promise You, I'll safeguard that ancient Old One device. I won't let the Chaos Gods destroy it."
That, in truth, was what lay at the heart of the Emperor's wrath.
The Warp Shield-Borer's predicament, paired with the Imperium's shifting situation, had torn open old memories.
The Master of Mankind feared the Imperium would again lose its budding prosperity—feared the Savior would walk the same ruinous path He had.
The galaxy and the Warp are already trending that way.
The Emperor turned His gaze toward Eden. In His eyes flickered a trace of worry. "They have set their eyes on you, as once They did on Me. They will stop at nothing to divide and dissolve your strength.
"And then, in the depths of your bitterest regret and pain, They will push you into an endless abyss."
He'd lived it once already. He forged an Imperium to lift humanity to prosperity, only for the Chaos Gods to break it all.
They gnawed at the Emperor's foundations in the dark.
Then, using the Webway as bait, They forced Him to step into a trap prepared long in advance, grievously wounding Him—and the nascent Imperium.
Ten millennia later, a terrible realization tugged at the Emperor's mind.
The Webway might actually have been something the Chaos Gods shoved into His path on purpose—to lead Him, step by step, to the edge.
It was a naked, brazen gambit—hard to defy. Even if time could rewind, He still wouldn't abandon the Webway. He would keep at the project.
Now the Chaos Gods have set another trap. Their target isn't the Emperor this time, but the Savior.
They're using the Old One artifact as bait, forcing the Savior to step into the snare They've set.
So that he will meet a tragic fate.
Recovering from the pain, Magnus knelt at the Emperor's feet.
He was riddled with guilt and anguish. "Father, I ruined everything. It was I who pushed the Imperium into the dark abyss with my own hands!"
"Magnus, that was not your fault…"
The Emperor's face looked older than ever, His voice weary. "Even without you, another would have shattered the Webway's veil.
"They have too many ways to bring that about. In that moment of history, the Webway's veil was doomed to fall—unless we'd prevented the entire situation from its very beginning.
"The reason I'm angry isn't your misstep under Their deceit, but that you sank willingly afterward. Look at what you did since!"
Surprisingly, the Emperor did not continue the punishment. He looked at Magnus with helpless, disappointed eyes—hating iron for not becoming steel.
It only made Magnus more ashamed. He wept aloud. "Father, I will make amends for everything—even if it costs me my life!"
Even after ten thousand years—
Magnus still remembered the expectation his Father had placed upon him, and that warm embrace—something none of the other primarchs had been given.
And he had betrayed all of it.
The Emperor said no more. He gestured for Magnus to rise and stand to one side and wait in silence.
"Little Red's luck isn't half bad…"
Seeing the Emperor's current demeanor, Eden quietly exhaled.
Magnus just happened to encounter one of the Emperor's gentler dominant personas today. If it had been one of the more violent ones, wouldn't the poor guy be left unable to fend for himself at all?
Still, what the Emperor had said tightened the knot in Eden's chest.
The Chaos Gods' fearful trap had snared even the Emperor. Could he, Eden, truly withstand it?
In the past, They hadn't invested effort to deal with him because he wasn't yet important enough. Now, as the Imperium's new sun—the key to humanity's resurgence—he would inevitably attract even greater malice and targeting from the Chaos Gods.
He very much did not want to end up like the Emperor—ruined and confined—then sitting on blackstone commodes in a row.
At some point, the Emperor had returned to the Throne, as if the "exercise" had taxed Him.
He looked down at Eden and spoke slowly. "You are afraid—afraid of the stratagems and intrigues of Chaos?"
"Yes. I am. But so what?"
Eden looked helpless. "We can't run from any of this. We can only take it head-on—and win in the end."
The Emperor's face was grave. "You are right. We have no choice. We can only confront Them—and defeat Them!"
Looking at the Emperor's aged features and the iron will emanating from His being, Eden felt a deeper surge of emotion.
He understands the Emperor far better now.
The Master of Mankind is resilient beyond words. There is nothing, no one, who can truly bring Him down.
Long ago, the Emperor foresaw the potential catastrophe. He knew the Warp's corruption of the galaxy was deepening. Humanity's time was running short.
So He unified Terra and launched the Great Crusade, hoping to gather enough strength to save a species mired in ignorance and darkness.
By that Crusade He brought vast territories to heel, returning more human worlds to the Imperium's fold—so they could weather the Warp's threat together.
The humans scattered across the stars, hemmed in by the dark and by their own confusion, proliferated blind, superstitious religions.
The Emperor knew the danger of belief. It draws the abominations of the Warp—and corrupts human hearts.
So He crushed the myriad cults and superstitions, then promulgated the Imperial Truth, seeking to deny the Warp and all divinities through the framework of science.
It was a rational, materialist, aggressively secular system of thought that married scientific advancement to human unity.
The Imperial Truth opposed all superstition and god-worship, and bound humanity into a single community of destiny.
A near-perfect design.
The Emperor once declared to humanity:
"Until the last stone of the last church smashes down upon the last priest, mankind will never know freedom, nor realize the manifest destiny of the galaxy's finest species!"
He warned his primarch sons and all humanity countless times not to worship Him, never to raise Him up as a god.
Yet each step was harder than the last. It felt like fate's cruel jest—or the Chaos Gods' constant meddling.
He swept away the labyrinth of religions—only to become the core of a new faith. A new god in human hearts.
Fallen churches were rebuilt—with His statues in pride of place. Human belief swelled like a river in flood.
He could not stop them from placing Him upon the altar.
Eden can imagine the Emperor's despair then:
Warp abominations were closing in, and human faith burned unchecked—like wildfire on the plains.
Impossible to stamp out.
So the Master of Mankind made one last gamble. He hid beneath the Himalazian Palace to repair the Webway.
If the darkness could not be averted, then at least build fast lanes to keep the stars connected—so humanity would not fall into absolute isolation and night.
He knew it might be a trap—and he still did it.
He had to. It was a roll of the dice with everything on the line.
Then came the tragic rupture between Father and sons. The Chaos Gods, using His Webway work to pin Him down, suborned many primarchs and unleashed a grand rebellion.
It didn't just cripple the Emperor and bind Him to the Golden Throne; it also sent the Imperium into decline—down to today.
Now, with a faint glimmer of renewed prosperity appearing, the Chaos Gods have moved in concert again to launch a new offensive.
Their target this time isn't the Emperor—but Eden, the Primarch of Hope—the Savior.
Just thinking about it chills the blood.
Aside from the Emperor, no one in the galaxy has withstood the combined assault of the four. And even the Emperor paid an almost unimaginable price.
"So much for turtling…"
Eden's anxiety and worry surged like a tide.
Without noticing, he's already become the Imperium's ruler. The Emperor's body wanes day by day. There's no one left to stand between him and the storm.
Or rather—he is the one who must stand between humanity and the storm.
"Can I carry this?"
Eden couldn't help but ask himself.
Anyone would feel a square-knot of panic on learning he might have to face the Chaos Gods alone.
Me? I'm supposed to go toe-to-toe with Chaos Gods?!
No wonder Old Roboute and the others keep dreaming of shedding their burdens and retreating to their domains to "farm."
This responsibility is crushing. It carries all hope for humanity's survival—and pits you against Chaos gods that are all but invincible.
But with matters at this point, there is nothing for him to do but step forward.
The Imperium's five great stellar domains and uncounted civilized worlds are all on his shoulders. There is no retreat.
"Brat, it seems you finally grasp your position."
Seeing Eden's eyes harden, the Emperor's lips curved into a gratified smile.
He also quietly relaxed, just a little.
He had been deeply afraid Eden would drop the load and run. Given Eden's usual laziness, it wasn't impossible.
He had finally cultivated one competent heir to the Imperium. If the boy turned tail, would He have to drag His wrecked body, nailed to the Golden Throne, to carry the weight for another age?
What a bleak, miserable fate—fraught with unknowable risks.
Truth be told, Eden knew it too.
No wonder the Emperor guarded him so zealously before. That was the plan from the very start—He was one step away from asking Eden to sit the "golden commode" in His stead.
He could understand the Emperor's mindset. The primarch sons were one disappointment after another—character flaws everywhere. If they didn't betray, they slumbered. If they didn't slumber, they vanished to who-knows-where to make trouble.
The fact the Master of Mankind hasn't utterly snapped is a miracle.
Finally finding a suitable heir, of course He'd protect and cultivate him—terrified the boy would quit.
If not for Eden's intrinsic nature as a little sun of the Warp—with no road to retreat—
He would have run long ago.
But he's already aboard the pirate ship, and he cannot betray the trust and expectations humanity has placed in their Savior.
"All right. Let's figure out how to break the Changer of Ways' sorcerous array first…"
Eden lifted a hand. Psychic radiance traced a projection in the air—a labyrinth of sigils and all manner of intricate runes.
It was the sorcerous network sealing the Warp Shield-Borer. The Imperial magisters had given their lives to recover this intelligence.
Several of the great psykers had paid with their lives.
They'd been eroded by the Changer of Ways; after transmitting the data, they chose self-destruction.
No matter what plot the Chaos Gods are brewing, humanity must take back that ancient device. Even if it's a trap—we must step onto it.
There is no other path.
Now, in this temple hall, stood the three mightiest human psykers—the Emperor, the Crimson King, and Eden the Savior himself.
Surely they can find a way to unpick the array.
Eden looked to the Emperor and Magnus with anticipation, waiting for their answer.
"Hmph. I will give you what you seek."
Magnus still held a bit of resentment toward Eden, but a chance to study Chaos sorcery alongside the Emperor—his Father—was vanishingly rare.
How he had once yearned for this: that Father might permit, even join him, in researching sorcery—to plumb the endless secrets of the galactic Warp.
He never thought that, after ten thousand years, the day would come!
Given the Imperium's plight, the Emperor no longer rejects Warp sorcery outright. Humanity even weaponizes it against Daemons—the Grey Knights, for instance.
This, too, was among Eden's reasons for coaxing Little Red home. Humanity needs the Crimson King's Warp lore. Know thy enemy, and you need not fear a hundred battles.
He waited, patient, for the Emperor and Magnus—to hear their solution.
After all, he couldn't make heads or tails of it himself.
Gradually, the hall's warp-sorcery swelled. In midair, the array morphed and reconfigured.
That was the Emperor and Magnus working through the problem.
Vmmm—
Above them, a phantom of the Warp Shield-Borer appeared. It sat within a vast sorcerous sigil strewn with stellar lights—those lights then refracted a star-field.
That confirmed the psychic magisters' earlier hypothesis—the sorcerous net is rooted in realspace and is constantly tearing at the ancient device.
They cracked the operating logic of the Changer of Ways' grand working—and even marked its anchor points in the material galaxy.
Like the plague arrays of the Plague Wars—
This array also rooted itself in world after world, birthing annihilating power.
It blankets the whole Vostonia panstellar region, has begun seeping toward the Halo Stars, and keeps using the Old One artifact and the riven veil to rip at the galaxy—
To force open a corridor darker even than the Eye of Terror.
Staring at the phantom array, Eden's scalp tingled. His chest tightened until he could hardly breathe.
In other words, wrecking the ancient Old One artifact—the Warp Shield-Borer—is only the appetizer of this calamity.
The Chaos Gods' true aim is to brute-force a Webway-style rift—without breaking the Golden Throne's seals.
And that dreadful tear may already be forming—meaning more Warp horrors can enter the Vostonia region.
Chaos could extend its power farther—without the Emperor's holy light to suppress it—running rampant.
Eden was glad for his caution—for coming to the Emperor and Little Red first, rather than lunging into battle.
If Guilliman or the Khan had led the army, they'd already be mashing "charge" with the whole front—right into the enemy's encirclement.
That would only squander the chance to respond in time—and in the right way.
Now he understood: he had underestimated this crisis. With the Redeemer Expedition's strength alone, there's no way to seize and cleanse every world under incursion—
And thus break an array spanning several star regions.
You cannot relax, not for a breath, when you match blades with the Chaos Gods—or the abyss will open at your feet.
If the Chaos Gods succeed, Daemonic hosts will gain a free highway into the galaxy and turn the Imperium into their back garden.
At that point, humanity will truly have no way back.
"This is no ordinary Chaos crisis."
Eden drew a steadying breath. His voice hardened.
"We can't dither any longer. I recommend the Imperium immediately enter a state of total war.
"Pour everything we have into the Vostonia panstellar region—
"And strike!"
(End of Chapter)
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