The sand was soft, weeping water as one stepped upon it. A layer of foam bubbled around Horus's feet, only to vanish in the blink of an eye, making him wonder if it had ever truly existed—or if his memory was starting to fail. He truly doubted the state of his own mind; scenes kept flashing back to him, blurred and frantic, memories concerning Sanguinius. But those were minor issues compared to what truly caused his self-doubt...
Father. Horus no longer knew if he should even call him that. A Xenos deity, yet inhabited by his father's soul—at least, that was what the Aeldari god claimed. Horus could indeed feel the connection between them. The Angel of Extinction. Horus chewed on the title. Fulgrim had once told him the legend of this Angel of Extinction, a story he had heard from an Aeldari farseer. But Fulgrim had also told him then that it was mere rumor, myth, and superstition—something that did not fit reality. There had never been a god named the Angel of Extinction among the Aeldari pantheon. Fulgrim had only intended to use the legend to trick Perturabo, strip him of his essence, and sacrifice him to the Warp in exchange for ascension...
Yet now, an avatar of his father had brought the rumor into reality, being born from Isha's womb after her death, descending into the world truly as the Angel of Extinction.
Horus didn't know how he truly felt about this. He yearned to discuss it with someone, but...
The twins of Alpharius—Horus did not trust them.
Lorgar... his soul was still drifting in the currents of the Warp, having not yet found itself. The Angel of Extinction had barely managed to fish him out; his will had not yet truly recovered. Furthermore, the Angel didn't seem to intend to restore Lorgar's original sanity; he had other arrangements for him.
As for the "Angel" with a face almost identical to their Father's—Horus could feel the loathing in the gaze that man directed at him.
He wanted to talk to the Angel, but not that one, so full of hatred. Horus stopped walking. He saw what he was looking for: a broken statue half-embedded in the sand. The lower half remained on a distant wall, its surface blurred by the erosion of water. Yet Horus could still recognize it: it was a statue of Sanguinius. He took a few more steps, and a crisp crack sounded beneath his feet.
Horus looked down, his arm piercing the soft sand to pull out the buried relic.
It was a broken chainsword, inlaid with an emblem: a pale chainsaw with a single drop of crimson blood hanging from it. Nassir Amit. The name flashed through Horus's mind. The mark of the Flesh Tearers Chapter—the most brutal and wrathful of Sanguinius's scions.
Horus was not surprised to find the chainsword here. He had already spotted many traces left by Flesh Tearers and Battle Sisters. This planet had clearly seen war—a tragic, bitter war. Many had died here, but Horus guessed even more had survived.
Horus approached the statue. He wanted to say something, but suddenly felt ridiculous. It was just a sculpture...
His expression shifted. He sensed "someone" standing behind him. He turned his head and looked at the Angel of Extinction with a touch of bitterness.
The Angel's almond-shaped Aeldari eyes were watching him, observing him.
"I am still loyal to you, even if you reside temporarily in a Xenos body."
"It is a Psyker-specialized Abhuman," the Angel of Extinction said softly.
Horus's face twitched. He really didn't want to argue about this topic, so he forced a change of subject.
"This planet is strange," Horus said. "The humidity is immense, the rain is endless, and the temperature is high. I suspect it was scoured by an intense solar wind."
"The tides are also bizarre. I imagine there is a massive moon behind those thick clouds."
"This is Lysios, of the Cryptus System." The Angel of Extinction's gaze swept across the surroundings. "A century ago, to purge the Tyranid swarms from this system, the Blood Angels used a Necron device—the Magnovitrium—to ignite a gas giant. The resulting shockwave swept through the entire system, nearly destroying every world within it."
"But only the worlds built by humans were erased. The deeper, physical world was not truly wounded. A century has passed; the temperatures have cooled, water vapor has begun to condense into rain once more, returning oceans to this world. Pulled by the moon's gravity, these oceans sweep across the planet time and again, just as they did a hundred years ago."
"Is this planet important?" Horus asked.
"Not important. But it is very, very close to the Origin of the Deviation."
The Angel of Extinction reached out and waved at the sky. The heavy clouds were torn apart, and sunlight spilled onto the surface of the planet that had seen rain for untold years. A star was embedded in the sky; Horus's keen sight quickly confirmed it was a planet sharing the same system as Lysios.
That planet zoomed in before Horus's eyes in an unnatural way, revealing its details. It was a world covered in hive cities, wastelands, and deserts. The collapsed hive cities, scorched by fire, sat upon the surface like iron scars.
"Asphodel. The Origin of the Deviation," the Angel of Extinction said.
"Is that where Doraemon was born?" Horus asked.
"Born?" A hint of hesitation entered the Angel's voice. "Unlikely. He simply appeared here. But where did his power come from?"
"From the birth of this universe to its extinction, no source for his power can be found."
"And why did he choose to manifest his power in the form of 'Doraemon'? Is there some deep meaning to it?"
"Was it to use such an image to deceive and trick me?"
"The 'me' that first sensed his existence was precisely because I was shocked by that Doraemon image that I chose to trust him temporarily..."
"...Do you loathe him?" Horus asked.
"Loathe... No, not loathe. I simply do not trust him." The Angel of Extinction shook his head in silence.
"Why? Then why did you choose to believe him back then?" Horus looked away from the crimson planet and toward the Angel.
"Because the current me is past the age of believing in Doraemon."
The Angel's eyes cast downward. "Doraemon is a fairy tale. A story. A... lie."
"It was a manga drawn in the 21st century. Its author was just an ordinary human."
"He wasn't even like Cao Zhi, Li Bai, Li He, Keats, Lovecraft, Frank Herbert, or Dan Abnett—men with enough Warp-sensitivity to unconsciously sense the flow of the tides and incorporate them into their works."
"It was just a fairy tale. A false hope. How can one trust that?"
The Angel of Extinction gazed at the crimson planet. Horus noticed that within the Angel's eyes, the planet was changing. Time was slowly rewinding. Past scenes surfaced on the world; causality, fate, and many images intertwined like silk threads. Eventually, the planet in the Angel's eyes froze and then began to magnify rapidly. At that time, Asphodel was not yet developed—it was a crimson desert. A somewhat primitive ship was slowly descending toward the surface. It was the first batch of colonists for Asphodel. The Angel of Extinction slowly reached out, wanting to reach across time to destroy that colony ship, to deviate the history of Asphodel directly...
But He did not extend His hand in the end. The Warp engine—the colony ship was damaged upon landing. The colonists converted it into the government building at the core of the colony, and the Warp engine inside was left behind. As time passed, it was buried in the deepest part of the hive, only to be obtained a hundred years ago by Alexander. To this day, it was still stuffed inside Alexander's 4D pocket. If Alexander wished, he could use that Warp engine at any time to influence Asphodel. It was impossible to affect Alexander by tampering with Asphodel now.
The Angel of Extinction did not seem to give up. The time in His eyes continued to rewind, tracing the colony ship back to the shipyard where it was built. But that Warp engine had existed even before the ship was constructed. The Angel was forced to trace back to where the engine itself was made...
The Angel saw the place where the Warp engine was manufactured. That somewhat desolate planet had produced one of the last batches of Warp engines before the end of the Golden Age. It hadn't been used before the Old Night rendered it derelict, only to be reused later. The Angel slowly reached out, wanting to ride the storms of the Old Night to destroy that planet, only to find the world was covered by some power that diverted the currents of the Warp, making it immune to the curses of the Old Night.
Morningstar... One of the colonies of CASN. When the Old Night arrived, the people of that planet gathered all their psykers, drained their power, and created a barrier against the darkness.
The Angel of Extinction still had the power to destroy that planet, but doing so without the cover of the Old Night storms would be too conspicuous. Alexander and the Gods would notice the moment He acted.
It was done so cleverly, so flawlessly. The Angel did not believe this was something Alexander had arranged back on Asphodel before he gained true power. For Alexander to land in such a perfect spot as Asphodel and obtain that Warp engine so perfectly... it must have been arranged. Was it the current Alexander arranging the past, or... that so-called 22nd Century?
The Angel of Extinction withdrew His hand. The possibility of interfering with Alexander's past via Asphodel was now negligible. And...
The God-Blight, transmitted from mother to child, the disease born into the world alongside Him, was flowing in His blood. It was completely integrated with His existence and was destined to kill Him in seventy-seven days. Even knowing He had fallen into Alexander's arrangements, the Angel didn't have many chances left to prepare and execute a new plan.
He could only act according to the original plan.
The Angel did not think He was without hope. The future was blurred, chaotic, and undecided. Alexander's chance of victory was not 100%.
"Let's go. There is no point in staying here anymore," the Angel of Extinction said, shaking His head.
"What do we do next?" Horus asked, looking up at the Angel.
"We go to find the Tree of Life. The one Russ was looking for."
"I will use this Tree of Life, which once nurtured tens of thousands of races in the galaxy, to heal the dead Dark King."
"The Tree of Life? What is that exactly?" Horus frowned. Russ had searched for ten thousand years and never found it. Why was the Angel so certain they could find it in their limited time?
"The Tree of Life is Isha."
The Angel said with lowered eyes: "People worship stones, and a divinity corresponding to that stone is born in the Warp. People worship trees, and a divinity corresponding to those trees is born. People worship mountains, and so a divinity for the mountain is born."
"As time passes, people forget the origin of their faith, and those divinities are able to exist independently of stones, trees, and mountains, becoming true Warp gods."
"The so-called Aeldari gods were divinities born from the technology and weapons gifted to the Aeldari by the Old Ones."
"Isha was born from the semi-Warp, semi-mechanical creations the Old Ones used to manufacture, produce, and cultivate races. That was the Tree of Life that bred countless species in the galaxy. Most races in the galaxy today are but a fruit from a branch of that Tree."
"That Tree of Life was long ago buried in the torrents of the Warp, dissolving into Isha's existence as her divinity was born. This is why Russ could never find it."
"This is also why I had to kill Isha. Becoming the Angel of Extinction was just a cover for this plan."
"With the birth of the Angel of Extinction, Isha's existence was discarded. She became a part of a forsaken, forgotten history. She lost her vitality and reverted into the Tree of Life, sinking into the depths of the Warp."
"I only hope we move fast enough to find it before Alexander... At this very moment, he is undoubtedly making thorough preparations himself..."
Meanwhile, on Baal, in a town outside the Fortress-Monastery of the Angels, a bar that had been closed for decades—its exterior dilapidated—suddenly lit up its sign. New posters were pasted on the windows, depicting a somewhat cute Sanguinius holding a tin can, saying with a smile: "Sanguinius Brand Meat Sauce: Hammered a Hundred Times for a Firm and Delicious Texture."