+I am God.+"
The simple words and boundless divinity were exposed before Lorgar without the slightest concealment. Lorgar's body trembled, awestruck by the divinity flowing in that blood.
It was true Chaos divinity, the infinite Primordial Truth—where everything becomes increasingly chaotic until even the individual collapses within the turmoil, the entire universe turning into disordered particles falling into an eternal and silent death.
Lorgar let out a wail. He felt his eyes being burned through, destroyed, and torn apart. Intense agony, mixed with unspeakable information, turned into golden tears that flowed from his eyes.
"No!!" Lorgar screamed. "I do not acknowledge this!!"
"Why did you admit to being a god so directly?"
"The God-Emperor isn't like this!"
"You should show your divinity and then stubbornly tell me you are not a god."
"You should occasionally warn me after I spread faith related to you."
"And finally, after the warnings fail, you should burn my Monarchia!"
"How can you just admit you are a god from the very start!"
"The God-Emperor is not like this at all! I don't accept it!"
Lorgar's tone was complex and his language disordered; he waved his arms, trying to pull away from the girl.
The girl simply took a soft step forward. +Do you intend to serve me, or forsake me and turn to push Guilliman to steal my position?+
+Make your choice, Lorgar, my High Chaplain.+
The air fell silent. After a few short seconds: "Father!!!" Lorgar cried out, took a step forward, and collapsed to his knees. He nearly crawled to the girl's feet and gently kissed her instep.
"Disgusting," Beta said.
"But Horus will be jealous," Gamma chuckled.
"Horus?" Lorgar raised his head slightly, stunned.
"I am Horus's Great-Legacy!!!" At that moment, Abaddon—who had been making various inexplicable movements—suddenly let out a war cry. He twisted his massive frame and lunged at the girl.
"Don't you dare!"
Lorgar displayed the reaction speed of a Primarch. He stood up almost instantly, placing his sturdy body in front of the girl and blocking Abaddon's massive Helbrute-like form. Yes, the Helbrute was terrifying, and the blessings on Abaddon were powerful, especially with the eightfold daemon possession raising his strength to an unimaginable level...
But Lorgar was a Primarch. Even unarmored and bare-handed, a Primarch reigned supreme over— "AAAAAAGH!!"
Lorgar let out a piercing scream. His arm, reached out toward Abaddon, was scorched. The eerie blue daemon sword released a blinding light, its surface crawling with thousands of faces moaning and shrieking. The daemon born from the first murder of mankind unleashed power it hadn't truly used in ten thousand years.
Millions of murders resonating with it echoed around the blade. Lorgar realized why Drach'nyen was so strong: every human murder was an echo of that first murder, providing power to Drach'nyen. He was the first murder and all murders; he was the human who kills and the bane of humanity. Even a Primarch, as long as he wore the identity of a human, was countered by this sword.
The blade sliced through the air. A bloody gash tore across Lorgar's chest. The searing pain burned his nerves, but Lorgar did not fall. Among all the Primarch brothers, Lorgar was not as skilled in combat as Lion or Fulgrim, nor as fierce as Angron or Russ.
He couldn't compare to Guilliman in logistics, was far inferior to Horus in war, lacked the psychic might of Magnus, and was not as swift as the Khan. But in one thing, Lorgar was confident he surpassed them all. Blood flowed from his wound, and with it flowed the ancient prayer runes carved into his body. Faith, even without relying on a god, possessed its own power—enough to banish daemons and suppress warp energy. Golden runes mixed with Lorgar's blood, forming chains that wrapped around Abaddon's form.
Lorgar exhaled deeply and took a step back. "Father, I have temporarily bound— Huh?"
Before Lorgar could finish, the sound of snapping rang out. One-eighth of the rune chains shattered. Drach'nyen turned completely into a mass of burning blue flames. Millions of murders echoed and burned within the fire, severing the chains. Drach'nyen was burning the murders stored within himself—burning a part of his very being—to exchange for such terrifying power. He was actually being this desperate.
Abaddon stepped forward, the daemon sword lunging straight for the girl's face. In that instant, time, space, existence, and reality itself were torn apart by Drach'nyen's edge. Everything turned into mottled phantoms.
Even Lorgar could not keep up with this speed. The figure holding the sword shifted; one moment it was Abaddon, the next it was a thousand faces—a muscular Stone Age chieftain with a twisted face of hatred; a grim senator hidden beneath robes with a hidden blade; a young noble with a sharp bow; a man by candlelight pulling an axe from his coat...
The girl's face also changed. She was sometimes a primitive monarch, sometimes a laurel-crowned general, sometimes a prince on a city wall, sometimes a sovereign who had just completed unification...
Ultimately, the one holding Drach'nyen became a golden guardian, and the girl revealed the form of the Golden Monarch.
Searing rune chains lashed onto Abaddon's body at the final moment. Reality snapped back, and Drach'nyen's tip stopped just short of the girl.
+You are my daemon.++Yet you wish to kill me.+
The girl gazed at the blade, tilted her head slightly, and showed an expression of confusion.
"It is not I who wishes to kill you." "It is the son of a water-thief who wishes to kill you."
Drach'nyen's voice echoed from the sword, and the silhouette of a golden guardian flashed for an instant.
The son of a water-thief... +Ra.++Out of hatred?+
"Out of Law." "You murdered his monarch, so he seeks revenge." "An eye for an eye. It is what you taught him; it is what he told me."
+It seems you and Ra experienced much after he ran into the Webway.+
"Not all murders are born of hatred and malice. There are things more noble, and Ra's soul happened to possess them."
Several more rune chains snapped. The blade lunged again, but this time, a broad hand reached out, grabbing Drach'nyen's edge and blocking the strike for the girl.
"Horus?" Lorgar's expression flickered as he looked at the man who had blocked the blow.
Horus gripped the blade firmly. The searing daemon sword caused blisters and steam to rise from his hand, but Horus stepped forward, forcibly shoving Drach'nyen back toward Abaddon.
"Who are you?" Abaddon asked in a nearly idiotic, frenzied state.
"I am your father!" Horus let out a roar. With his bare fist, he smashed into the armor on Abaddon's left shoulder—armor made of ceramite, adamant, and Vashtorr's special alloy. The sound was like thunder; the armor caved in instantly, exposing coils and cables that spat sharp sparks. Abaddon's seven-to-eight-meter-tall body actually staggered back several steps under Horus's punch, nearly falling.
"Dad! Why aren't you dead again!"
Abaddon let out a shrill, confused scream. "Dad! You don't need to come back to life! I've already inherited your legacy! I am your Great-Legacy!"
"Cthonian gang profanity"
Horus cursed, grabbed the exposed cables on Abaddon's shoulder, and yanked hard. Abaddon's entire body tumbled to one side. Drach'nyen let out a hissing roar; searing flames and sharp murders—thousands of blades—stabbed into Horus's body. Droplets of blood sprayed down like rain.
"GET OUT!!!"
Horus's savage war cry was deafening. A black shadow loomed over him, as if he were still that dark monarch who tore the galaxy apart. Horus forcibly ripped Drach'nyen from Abaddon's hand. He held the sword high, his entire arm burning amidst millions of murders. Cracking sounds rang out; sharp fractures ran through the daemon sword. The blade born from the first murder, bathed in the Emperor's blood, and guarded by the water-thief's son Ra Endymion, shattered in Horus's hand. The broken sword of metal, bone, and fire fell to the ground. Lorgar hurriedly summoned dozens of rune chains to seal the sword firmly to the floor.
Lorgar looked at Horus with fear. It was unimaginable that he had returned to life and possessed such power... undoubtedly, it was power from the Dark King. He was the Dark King's sacrifice and the Dark King's Daemon Primarch.
+Tame him.+
The girl pointed at Abaddon and nodded to Horus. With Drach'nyen temporarily sealed, only seven daemons remained in Abaddon's body. The system built by Vashtorr began to fail, and Abaddon's movements fell into complete chaos and absurdity.
"Ab-Ab-Ab-Abaddon!" "Despoiler of a hundred victories, Abaddon!"
Horus's face twitched. He nodded to the girl, then let out a savage growl and lunged at Abaddon with his fists.
He was going to settle this the Cthonian gang way.
The girl walked to the broken daemon sword and looked down at Drach'nyen. +Murderer.+
+I wove a cage for you with Ra's soul, outlined humanity, and gave you Ra's obedience and service. I hoped to use this to put a leash on you, letting you sink into the sloth brought by humanity to limit your own power.+
+But from Ra, you did not only gain obedience and service. You learned something else.+
+Ten thousand years ago, you were sealed for trying to murder me.++Ten thousand years later, you are sealed again for trying to murder me.++But this is different, isn't it?+
"If you were still human, I would surely have killed you," a lament came from within Drach'nyen—or rather, from Ra Endymion, the cage of the daemon itself.
The son of the water-thief was long dead, but his humanity had shaped Drach'nyen and still existed upon it.
+If I were still human, you would not have swung your sword at me again.+
+Your mission is over, son of the water-thief.+
The girl gently reached out her hand toward the sword. The shred of humanity restraining Drach'nyen broke; Drach'nyen died once more, then was reborn in the girl's hand. But the reborn Drach'nyen was different.
He no longer had humanity or wisdom; only base and hateful murder remained. The girl grabbed the hilt and lifted the sword; the fragments instantly merged as if they had never broken, and the boundless evil power of the first murder was released without restraint.
"Dad! Dad! Dad!"
Abaddon was kneeling on the ground, covered in wounds, kowtowing deeply to Horus.
"I truly want to kill him and end the ugliness and pain upon him," Horus said, his tone full of disgust, sadness, and a hint of unbearable pity.
He could not stand seeing his scion in this state.
+He is still useful,+ the girl replied calmly.
The girl walked barefoot toward Abaddon. She raised the daemon sword high and plunged it into his Helbrute-like body. Abaddon let out a sharp cry of agony, then his body slowly stood straight. The eightfold realms within him intersected, fused, and split repeatedly. The primordial truth of Chaos manifested within him.
+Vashtorr... truly a genius.+
+In the past ten thousand years, the representative of Chaos was not those Daemon Primarchs, nor the divided Gods, but him—Abaddon.+
+The Chaos Space Marines more or less recognized Abaddon's status as the Warmaster of Chaos. For the Imperium, for a long time, Abaddon equaled Chaos.+
+His achievement in tearing the galaxy with the Great Rift made him the beloved of Chaos itself.+
+And Vashtorr used the eightfold daemons to weave a ritual in his body, creating this conscious idol of Chaos.+
The girl gently placed her hand on Abaddon. +Of course, in terms of power, Abaddon is ultimately insufficient to face Alexander. But Vashtorr never intended for Abaddon to face Alexander directly.+
+On the contrary, he wanted Abaddon to believe in Alexander.+
+He wanted to mix Chaos itself—the millions of Chaos Space Marines symbolized by Abaddon—into the foundation of Alexander's faith, thereby tearing Alexander's will, dragging his steps, and creating an opportunity for ascension.+
+Too bad Alexander calculated that Vashtorr would give up his own ascension.+