The shard of Magnus's soul within Janus gave Ahriman no chance to refuse; in an instant, he extracted the necessary knowledge directly from Ahriman's mind.
Janus's corpse stirred. Controlled by the psychic will of the Magnus shard and fueled by the near-infinite psychic energy drawn from the main body of Magnus, the spell known as the Second Rubric was reconstructed within Janus's frame. Like the First Rubric, the Second Rubric transcended reality, time, and space, becoming a part of destiny itself. Once, this spell had been completed by Magnus sacrificing his own sons to reshape himself; now, this soul shard would reverse the spell once more. The Second Rubric could undo the effects of the First—a literal miracle. And a miracle demanded a heavy sacrifice. That sacrifice was Magnus.
The true purpose of the Second Rubric was to sacrifice Magnus himself, using his destruction as the offering to restore the Rubric Marines.
+ No! +
Ahriman let out a bitter wail. He was willing to sacrifice the Sorcerer-Tyrant, that puppet of Tzeentch, for the sake of his brothers—but he could not bear to sacrifice his father, the noble and wise Magnus he remembered.
But the shard of Magnus only smiled.
"Once, Magnus was dead, and only Janus remained."
"Now, Janus is dead, and only Magnus remains."
"Angel, I am Magnus: the One-Eyed, the Blind, the Plaything of Fate, he who is but dust."
"Today, I command you to witness—witness the final sorcery of the Crimson King."
The fingers of Janus's corpse lunged forward, gripping the Angel's forehead. Two distinct psychic energies collided at zero distance. Janus's fingers began to be consumed by blue flames, burning away, yet they simultaneously reached deep into the Angel's very essence.
The Angel roared, resisting the intrusion of Janus's psychic power, but he found himself unable to break free. Ten thousand years of history—the souls, psychic power, existence, rage, sorrow, struggle, and fate of all the Thousand Sons—were concentrated here. The Angel felt a psychic force so massive it was terrifying, sensing two terrifyingly complex rituals etched into the fabric of destiny itself. Janus, this shard of Magnus, was dragging himself and the Angel into the heart of that fate.
"The First Rubric: All is Dust."
"The Second Rubric: The Backflow of Karmic Fire."
"This is the tragedy of my sons, the record of their mockery by fate, but also the evidence of their rebellion against it."
"Ahriman, my son—my children—your struggle is over. I shall fulfill the responsibility I should have long ago. I offer my remaining eye to the Rubric, turning this shard to ash, discarding the last of Magnus's nobility and intellect to trade for the power of Fate."
"Now, I shall complete the Third Rubric."
The shard of Magnus exhaled his final breath. Time had been too short. Moments ago, he was still Janus, the first Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights shaped by Malcador, with the Magnus half suppressed. Only when Janus chose to embrace his identity as Magnus to fight the Angel did the shard rise to the surface, allowing him to think as Magnus once more and resonate with the original body and the Rubric. In this brief window, there was little he could do; he hadn't even the time to construct a new Rubric, only to hastily summon the Second Rubric from history and modify it to work as Ahriman had originally intended.
The sacrifice he could offer was small—only this single shard—but it would suffice.
Karmic fire rained down from destiny. Janus's corpse was submerged in flames as the last shard of Magnus bathed in the sacrificial fire. The Angel let out a harrowing wail.
"Then, until we meet again next winter."
And so, all became ash.
The Rubric etched upon destiny sent a tremor through the entire Warp. This ritual, transcending time, space, and matter, carried the total psychic weight of every Thousand Son across ten millennia. Janus's corpse disintegrated, and the shard of Magnus was liberated as it was swallowed by the fires. His existence, his power, his everything was annihilated by the returning karmic flames, turning into pale ash. The ash blanketed the world like a winter blizzard, momentarily revealing the silhouettes of the Thousand Sons sacrificed to the Rubric, and the figure of a blind Magnus.
"GET AWAY!!!" the Angel screamed. The instinct within his flesh screamed of mortal danger. He thrust out his hands, gathering his terrifying psychic power to crush the encroaching ash. Even the girl was momentarily stunned by this power, turning back to look at the snow of ash. But their movements froze for a split second. Abdomen, bladder... a swelling pressure...
"The 'Frequent and Urgent Urination' Bacteria"
This was not Mortarion's creation. He had traded for it from Alexander long ago while researching the man's biology. It was produced by the "Randomized Pathogen Generator," and its effects were absolute.
It was exactly this split-second delay that allowed Magnus's Third Rubric to complete. The void let out a scream as the sacrificial fire burned away the last shard of Magnus scattered among mortals. The blind Magnus, having offered himself as the sacrifice to the triple-Rubric spell, sent the effect of the Third Rubric expanding across the galaxy through the links of fate, blood, and sorcery. On the Planet of the Sorcerers, wizards watched in disbelief as their Rubric Marines—warriors who were once only dust—began to vibrate. Ash began to condense into form; some regained their flesh immediately, their souls returning to their bodies, while many others began a slow process of restoration.
Ahriman, the Lord of the Rubric, felt it most clearly. With the sacrifice of one shard, the failed Second Rubric was completed in the form of the Third. Though the sacrifice was only a shard, it provided the necessary fuel for the power to stabilize. His brothers were returning. More importantly, something was born. With Magnus's sacrifice, the divinity that originally required the sacrifice of the entire Legion—the divinity representing the worst side of fate, the destiny that "all is dust"—was born. The domain of "Ahriman," a divinity that grows stronger as the universe nears its end, had begun its initial birth in the Warp. Even in its nascent state, its power surpassed most minor entities in the Immaterium. As that domain opened, the accumulated rage, pain, and despair of the Thousand Sons over ten thousand years were vented at once. Using the sacrifice of the shard as a gateway, it turned entirely into ash. The blind Magnus seized this explosive potential; streaks of ash pierced through the Angel like blades, completely drowning the powerful being. A piercing scream echoed from within.
Mortarion seized the opportunity, lunging toward the girl. The Lord of the Gloom had never been so fast in his life; his pale, thin body became a streak of pure light. Only when his scythe blade shattered the girl's back did his form reappear. The girl did not block him, allowing the blade to pierce her false skin. Her bronze skin popped like a balloon, exposing the contents hidden beneath. A tragic shriek erupted from the wound in her back; a viscous, dark, and desperate darkness geysered out. The intense impact shattered Mortarion's scythe and incinerated his hands. The contents crawled out of her back, floating into the sky, condensing and twitching into a solid form—an obsidian sun that reflected no light. Only a mud-like black liquid still connected it to her shell. Just a little more...
Mortarion gritted his teeth, chanting pale incantations. He only needed to shatter that obsidian sun—but a mangled arm burning with blue fire suddenly gripped his shoulder. A wild roar came from behind him. It was the Angel. His wings were reduced to bone by the ash, dragging scorched nerves and vessels. Half his body was gone, the hair on his head was burned away, and his remaining skin was withered and grey.
Having only offered one shard as a sacrifice, the Angel was weakened but not dead. Driven by his intense hatred for the Warp, his broken body continued to move. He threw Mortarion aside, interrupting his chant. At that moment, the obsidian sun spat out tongues of searing fire, instantly piercing through Isha's body.
Isha's pale face convulsed weakly, her slender fingers going limp. In an instant, the obsidian sun dived into Isha's body and vanished.
Mortarion was slammed to the ground by the wounded Angel. Gasping for air, he watched the dying Isha, unable to understand what the girl was doing. What was she...
A cry—a baby's cry—interrupted his thoughts. The sound was strangely ethereal, as if coming from a non-existent realm, echoing from a forgotten history. It was the cry of something discarded being reborn.
"What are you trying to do?!" Mortarion roared in interrogation.
The Angel's mangled face was hideous. He swung a fist with his remaining arm, pinning Mortarion to the ground with savage brawling.
But his movements froze for a moment. His fist seemed hesitant, and his form became unstable. Mortarion gasped, feeling a similar sensation—a sense of drifting, as if his own existence and birth were no longer certain.
Wisdom from Numerology allowed him to instinctively realize what was happening: a closed loop of causality had been shattered. A piece of discarded history had been revived. A forsaken existence was being reborn. Past history was being denied, and along with it, everything born after that history—including Mortarion—was being affected. Their existence was becoming uncertain.
The dying Isha's abdomen swelled. Blood flowed between her legs. The crying became clearer, sharper, and more distinct.
In the Warp, the Gods stirred in agitation. The most terrified was Slaanesh. The deity born from the Fall of the Eldar felt the cry of a newborn Aeldari god—an infant born between life and death... a... Destroyer Angel...
That was not an Angel born in this moment, nor a divinity born during the Fall of the Eldar. It was something from an even earlier time, a divinity born during the height of the Eldar Empire. It was born from the essence of Khaine and the womb of Isha, an entity born from the intersection of murder and life. It was a young god who originally had the potential to become the Dark King. But the Old Ones had been wary; long before their destruction, they predicted that the Eldar's emotions would give birth to such a divinity. Thus, they left a way to solve it. The Eldar and their gods seized the chance when the Destroyer Angel was at its weakest, using the Old Ones' methods to resurrect Isha from the past into the present. Since the Destroyer Angel was born of Isha's death, as long as Isha remained alive, his birth was invalidated. The young god was discarded, becoming a non-existent thing.
Slaanesh was actually grateful to the Destroyer Angel; if he hadn't taken the hit for Slaanesh, it might have been Slaanesh who was erased by the Old Ones' failsafe.
Originally, Slaanesh was the most likely to curse the birth of the Destroyer Angel, as they were conflicting entities. Both had ties to the Eldar. But not long ago, Alexander had forcibly ripped open Slaanesh's stomach, drawing out vast numbers of Eldar souls and gods. Many Eldar had then chosen to worship Alexander, discarding their Eldar identity to call themselves "Psychic-Specialized Abhumans." Slaanesh's connection to the Eldar had hit rock bottom, and he no longer had the strength to swallow Isha or stop the Angel's birth. Slaanesh cursed Alexander and Nurgle, mocking them for reaping the whirlwind of their own making.
Blood flowed. Across the galaxy and the Warp, shards of Khaine let out a collective blood-roar. Scalding, lava-like blood seeped from these shards, dripping into the currents of the Warp and weaving into patterns like hideous limbs. They spread from all directions into Nurgle's realm, piercing into Isha's womb.
The crying became sharper and colder. Finally, Isha let out a wail of grief as blood submerged her side. Her eyes gradually lost their luster. The crying became frantic, as if the child was too impatient to wait for his mother to give birth—he was going to force his own way into the world.