"Sure enough, it's that ** piece of work. Ten thousand years, and somehow that rabid bastard is still alive, still not dead…"
Eden frowned as he reread the message, confirming he hadn't misread it.
In that emergency report, the Imperial traitor currently being pursued by the Ravenlord Corvus Corax was none other than the Word Bearers' Dark Apostle, Primarch Lorgar's most trusted lieutenant, the so-called Hand of Destiny—
Erebus!
It was a name so foul that, if the galaxy were holding a vote for the most evil piece of trash in existence, Erebus would be on the shortlist, and near the very top. A title earned in full.
To the point where merely seeing the name felt unlucky, like stepping in dog shit. He was despised and spat on by both the Imperium and the Traitor Legions.
Erebus wasn't much as a fighter, but his talent for making everything disgusting and for playing conspiratorial games was maxed out.
So much so that even his name and identity were stolen.
According to the highest-grade forbidden archives within the Imperium, this stinking pile of canine filth was born evil. He murdered the real Erebus, then took his place and infiltrated the priesthood.
By whatever means necessary, he climbed into the position of first chaplain and senior apostle within the Word Bearers, ultimately winning Lorgar's trust and becoming his right hand.
Erebus was a Chaos cultist by nature, the kind that even the Changer of Ways would look at and sigh in admiration.
From the very beginning of the Imperium, from the moment he first laid eyes on the Emperor, he had been thinking about how to bring the Emperor down and overturn the Imperium.
No grand cause. No higher justification.
He simply wanted to do it.
And he actually went and did it.
Even the Chaos Gods were impressed. How could humanity produce such a purely, perfectly awful bastard?
Long ago, this Dark Apostle and Hand of Destiny had already been subtly shaping Lorgar's mind, pushing his faith into greater fanaticism and stoking conflict after conflict.
Then, when Lorgar was at his weakest, he goaded him into falling to Chaos, making him the first Primarch to betray the Imperium.
After that, Erebus still wasn't satisfied. He turned his sights on Horus, and engineered the war between the Imperium and the Interex.
That ensured the Imperium would fail to recognize Chaos' corruption in time.
"What a waste. That civilization could've pushed the Imperium into a new era, instead of dragging it into extremism and decay."
Thinking of it, Eden couldn't help feeling a deep regret. In terms of ideals and system design, the Interex were remarkably similar to the Savior's Domain.
They were not only benevolent, but technologically advanced. Interex armor could resist bolter fire. Their weapons could pierce Astartes plate with ease. Their automation was extraordinarily sophisticated.
More importantly, the Interex knew Chaos existed, and had found active methods to resist corruption.
If Horus had peacefully brought that human civilization into compliance, or forged a deep alliance the way the Imperium did with the Mechanicum and other regions, perhaps humanity could have avoided its most tragic fate.
But Erebus did not want the Imperium to gain the Interex. He destroyed it all.
While Horus was negotiating with Interex leadership, Erebus secretly infiltrated their sealed zones and stole a fatal Chaos artifact—
The Anathame.
That led the Interex to believe the Imperium had pledged itself to Chaos. Negotiations collapsed, and war erupted.
It was a brutal war.
And during that war, Erebus arranged another trap, using the Anathame to wound Horus in a way that could not be contained.
Then he stepped forward and claimed he could heal the Warmaster's injury, took the unconscious Horus away, and began pouring a torrent of deceptive visions into his mind.
Those visions fooled Horus. They made the Warmaster believe the Emperor had betrayed the Imperium and the Primarchs.
And so Horus gathered his brothers under the banner of "righteous correction," and the rebellion began.
The Horus Heresy ignited. The fires spread from the galactic fringe all the way to Terra, and the Imperium fell into chaos and decay.
After that, Erebus stayed at Horus' side, twisting truth into lies, offering counsel that harmed everyone. Both sides, together, in one nauseating package.
Under his schemes, the traitor host cut a path from Isstvan to Terra, committing horrors without end. Countless massacres. Lives extinguished by the quadrillions.
And throughout it all, Erebus never stopped. He stabbed multiple Legions and countless others in the back through a long chain of revolting moves.
For example, he went to Calth and thoroughly screwed over the Ultramarines, then aided Typhus so that "filial" little monster could drag his Primarch and Legion into Grandfather Nurgle's trap and doom them all to corruption.
Beyond that, he provoked the Blood Angels, the World Eaters, and many more.
As for the individuals he betrayed, they were beyond counting. The Imperium and Chaos alike had countless people who wanted him dead with every fiber of their being.
The truly ridiculous part was that Erebus even tried to assassinate the Emperor, only to fail. Afterwards, Horus scolded him, saying it was not "honorable."
To the Warmaster, assassination was a tool for cowards. He later also blocked Erebus' plan to corrupt Sanguinius, and killed that Primarch.
Erebus was furious. He went to Horus to argue, accusing him of stupidity.
And, to everyone's great delight, the Warmaster tore his face off in front of others, flaying him bloody.
The only pity was that Horus didn't rip him into pieces and finish the job. Erebus survived.
There was likely another secret, one even the Primarchs did not know.
Erebus killed their shared mother—
Erda.
According to what Eden remembered from his previous life, during the Siege of Terra, Erebus secretly sought out Erda, the mother of the Primarchs. Despite being, in a sense, of a younger generation, he became infatuated with her and attempted to persuade her to join Chaos.
Erda refused, and condemned Erebus as a petty instigator and a clown who lived to sow discord and perform for applause.
Erebus flew into a rage. He summoned multiple Greater Daemons to surround and overwhelm Erda, grievously wounding her.
Then he drew a Chaos blade and threatened the Primarchs' mother, greedily telling her that if she would only worship him and serve him, she could live.
What the Dark Apostle and Hand of Destiny received in reply was nothing more than a spit of contempt.
So he stabbed the dying Primarch-mother, and then destroyed her remains completely, without a shred of hesitation.
"Erebus is vicious. Killing the Emperor's former partner—the Primarchs' mother—how much hatred does that buy you?"
Eden forced himself to sift through everything he knew about Erebus, extracting any detail that could be weaponized.
It would be crucial for guarding against that reeking pile of dog shit.
Yet one point troubled him.
"This is such an enormous matter. Why did even the Primarchs never learn of it? Why did the Emperor seem as if nothing had happened?"
Eden suspected the Emperor personally sealed the truth, ensuring that nothing was left in Imperial records.
Thinking it through, he arrived at a possible reason.
After creating the Primarchs, the Emperor and Erda had fallen out. He may even have hated her for scattering the Primarchs.
Originally, after creating them, the Emperor intended to raise the Primarchs himself, to have them grow at his side, and to teach them all his knowledge and arts.
Primarchs raised that way would have been the Imperium's perfect pillars.
But Erda did not want her children to become tools of war. She used a Warp vortex to cast the infant Primarchs away, scattering them across the galaxy.
That shattered the Emperor's carefully prepared plan, cost the Imperium precious time, and bred countless new risks.
Worse still, the Primarchs—lost as infants—endured danger and suffering without proper guidance, leaving cracks in their souls.
And they developed distance from their biological father.
Under those conditions, the Emperor would inevitably have resented Erda. Perhaps he did not retaliate, but he would not have treated her kindly.
So, after her death, he simply sealed the information, lest it affect the Primarchs in the midst of war.
And later, once the Emperor ascended the Golden Throne and became something closer to a god—losing many human emotions—he would have had even less reason to concern himself with old grievances.
Of course, that was only Eden's own conjecture.
He knitted his brow.
"At this point, the only ones who know this—besides me and the Emperor—are that pile of dog shit himself."
This secret was an important piece of information. At the right moment, it could trigger serious consequences.
If the Primarchs learned it, they would likely be enraged, lose their usual judgment, and fall neatly into a trap.
Eden had no doubt about the power of words. In countless recorded battles, warriors had turned the tables by goading their foes into mistakes.
Even some Primarchs were no exception. If not for successful provocation, they would have lost duels, fallen to their knees, or died.
Eden finished organizing the relevant data on Erebus, and let out a long sigh.
"At this rate, that pile of filth was the true mastermind of the Horus Heresy—the instigator, the prime mover. His record is right there. He's the real MVP.
Compared to him, Horus looks like some innocent white lotus. The Primarchs got played like toys."
Put simply, the Imperium was a massive hauler truck, loaded with humanity, roaring toward hope and a better future—
And then Erebus leapt out and splashed the driver—the Emperor—and the Primarch passengers up front with a bucket of shit.
The whole vehicle swerved out of control, slammed into a reeking ditch, and sank.
If the Warp and Chaos were the shit, then Erebus was the bucket used to scoop it. Or perhaps he was even more disgusting than the bucket itself.
"Troublesome. That bastard is active again, and he's clearly brewing some major scheme.
Who knows what kind of crap he's scooped up this time, planning to fling it at the Imperium…"
Eden felt genuinely anxious. The good mood he'd had from seeing baby Angron was gone.
Granted, Erebus was not as direct a threat as the Chaos Gods, but he was sufficiently insidious and revolting, and his past achievements were well documented.
No one could afford to be careless.
In a sense, no one wanted to get dog shit on them, especially not the foulest pile in the galaxy.
Eden wasn't worried about the fallen Primarchs or the daemons. Most of them were half-mad, driven by cravings, incapable of planning anything truly sophisticated.
At worst, they would attempt an ambush, or concentrate corruption on a region.
But Erebus was different. He was a strategist, a schemer, a planner who never followed the rules.
Who knew what world-shaking disaster he might attempt this time, costing Eden dearly.
And since the Chaos Gods had suffered repeated defeats in both realspace and the Warp, they might well choose to support Erebus.
Let him stir the galaxy into turmoil.
In that case, at best he would hinder Eden's expansion. At worst he could shatter the Imperium's current favorable situation.
"Why haven't I received even a single trace of information about him until now?"
That thought made Eden even more uneasy.
He had built an immense intelligence system across both the galaxy and the Warp. He could even track a fair portion of the Chaos Gods' activities.
Yet over these years, he had never detected Erebus' presence. No traces. No reports. It was as though the man had vanished.
That Dark Apostle and Hand of Destiny had hidden himself by some means unknown.
Perhaps he had advanced further along a certain ascension ladder, gaining the ability to conceal himself to this degree.
Erosion and Destruction?!
The purest Chaos—something that prevented most minds from remaining sane. It craved only annihilation, advancing without mercy, pushing all mortal things toward an inevitable end—
Reduced to dust, and forgotten.
Judging by Erebus' prior actions, that path suited him well. And he had likely made an immense impact upon it.
He could probably gather considerable power through it.
"Erebus disrupted the entire Imperium—no, the entire galaxy. The reward he received must have been enormous."
Eden lingered on that point. The Warp's rewards were not always raw strength; they could be far more valuable.
Authority. Concepts. Principles.
His title alone—Dark Apostle, Hand of Destiny—suggested an underlying power of a far more frightening kind.
Much more frightening than brute force.
A conspirator with unknown powers was far more destructive than a mere warrior—especially with the Chaos Gods backing him.
Take Angron's daemonic form from earlier. Angron's behavior was predictable, so Eden could prepare in advance, lay a trap, and lure him in.
But would Erebus ever walk into a trap?
Or would he be laying one for the Savior instead?
Everything was unknown. Unpredictable.
The more Eden analyzed, the more difficult it became. His brow remained tightly drawn.
Then he suddenly realized something.
The galaxy had changed too much under his influence.
As he seized more power, the informational advantage he once enjoyed was gradually eroding.
And more than that, he had never truly known this world's future timeline. He could not know what would happen next.
It was a chaos of possibilities—and it could shift at any moment.
Once he fully acknowledged that, Eden felt a sudden, unsettling sense of losing control.
From this point onward, his "omniscient and omnipotent" Savior persona might not work so smoothly.
More challenges were coming.
More unknown "surprises" that had never existed before.
"I can only hope Corax finds Erebus in the Warp. I wonder if Dorn is hunting him too.
If we can locate the bastard's lair, I can bring an elite host and drown him on the spot…"
That was Eden's thought.
Against this sort of lurking viper, you had to break cunning with overwhelming force.
Better yet, throw a greenskin horde at him and let them chase him down without end.
He needed to capture that pile of dog shit, hang him up by his—cough—and execute him for a hundred years.
"Brother, what happened?"
Leon and the others noticed the Savior's unusual expression and all looked over.
Their brother's heavy concern could only mean something major had happened within the Imperium.
"I just received information about Erebus."
Eden sent them the intelligence message he had just received, along with additional material he had deduced.
Naturally, he withheld the matter of the Primarchs' mother.
The moment Lion El'Jonson, Jaghatai Khan, and Perturabo heard that name, their expressions changed, as if they had just seen a fresh pile of dog shit.
They, of course, knew the infamous bastard Erebus—and loathed him to the bone.
Disgusting.
Even baby Angron puckered his lips in displeasure, which said everything about how detestable the man was.
If the Primarchs' bolters had only two rounds left, and there were three heretics in front of them—Lorgar, Fulgrim, and Erebus—
They would probably fire both rounds into Erebus.
Eden rubbed baby Angron's head to calm the little one.
Then he looked at the others and spoke with clear gravity.
"Baby day is canceled. We need to go hold a war council immediately."
With Erebus active, Eden's previous plans had to change. Imperial defense needed deeper, tighter arrangements.
"If nothing goes wrong, the plan to conquer the Vigilus War Zone has to be moved up.
Now that Erebus is on the board, if he still has any intelligence left, he'll try to stop us from obtaining that region's Blackstone, and his methods will be extremely disgusting."
Eden laid out the meeting's central purpose.
"We have to take that dog-shit battlefield—fast. Before he does.
We seize all Blackstone deposits as quickly as possible.
If the worst-case scenario unfolds, we may end up facing the Warp and nearly every heretic and xenos power in the galaxy at the same time.
That won't be easy…"
The Vigilus region had already become a stew of war. Every Chaos and xenos force had gotten involved.
It was balanced, yet chaotic—no one could achieve their objective. If you made a wrong move, you could be swarmed by everyone at once.
Fortunately, the Departmento Munitorum already had a relevant plan. It might be possible to take the region in a single decisive strike.
Advancing the timetable would mean taking on some risk, but it was better than seeing that region destroyed and gaining nothing.
Especially now that Eden's Warp-blockade apparatus had been exposed. He would need vast quantities of Blackstone going forward, and the Imperium's enemies would not want him to secure the Vigilus region.
"Hiss…
Something feels wrong. I think I've overlooked something?!"
As Eden walked with his Primarch brothers toward the war council chamber, he continued thinking through the operational plan.
He couldn't shake the feeling that something crucial had slipped his attention.
And faintly, he felt a premonition.
Some unknown, utterly unhinged new disaster was about to erupt within the Imperium's borders…
(End of Chapter)
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