When the Emperor's will—laden with ten millennia of solitude and bottomless remorse—ebbed from the Throne Room like a receding tide, a hush never before felt, almost sacred, settled upon every Primarch's soul.
Anger, confusion, betrayal—those emotions that had raged like a Warp storm—were gently smoothed away by an unseen hand after brushing against a truth so vast it made them tremble.
"The Imperial Truth" was a lie—yes.
But it was a lie born not of scorn or mockery, rather from a father's deepest, clumsiest wish to protect his children.
It was a mental sterile wall, a desperate barrier meant to keep "the wolf" forever outside the cradle.
Behind that wall, their father—the god upon the Golden Throne—labored alone on a secret, divine project that could rewrite the galaxy's physical laws: the Webway initiative.
He sought to build mankind a new, uncontaminated road to the light.
In that instant the Great Crusade's meaning was re-defined: they were not on a blind conquest; they were buying priceless "time" for a cosmic surgery to reach completion.
They had not been abandoned tools; they were elite guards trusted to keep the operating theatre safe.
In that moment most Primarch found peace.
Dorn no longer agonised over the Empire's false bedrock, for beneath it he now saw a grander, firmer blueprint of reality.
The lie was mere scaffolding; the true edifice was far more magnificent than he had dreamed.
Guilliman ceased raging at strategic waste, understanding that, weighed against a future where humanity might escape Chaos for good, every Great Crusade loss was an acceptable, necessary cost.
His mind raced to re-engineer a new imperial administration and supply chain built upon the Webway.
His "kindness" had brewed a Universe-level disaster.
That knowledge cut deeper than any blade.
They all understood: the care behind the lie, the tragedy of the desperate gamble, the crushing, unshareable loneliness borne by the father on the Throne.
Yet this understanding sank like a feather cast into the abyss, and after a heartbeat a colder, darker up-current from the depths flung it upward into a far vaster, more terrifying shared question.
Horus still knelt on one knee, slowly lifting the head once filled with glory and pride, now hollow with remorse.
His voice was hoarse, dazed by the awakening from a long dream.
"Father…""
"I understand. We all understand."
He looked round at his lost-in-thought brothers; anger had fled their faces, replaced by a purer, warrior-strategist's bewilderment.
"To protect us, to guard your great Webway plan, you chose to hide the truth."
"You counted on us as an unyielding bulwark and staked the future of mankind in a cosmic gamble against all malice."
Horus's voice steadied, the Warmaster's instinct to read a battlefield returning.
He voiced the question rising simultaneously in every Primarch's heart.
"But what we cannot grasp is—what foe, what power so mighty, could force You, the Emperor of Mankind, conqueror of the galaxy, source of all our strength, to fight through the most uncertain method of all—chance?"
Indeed.
That question blazed like a black Sun across their minds, swallowing the frail new light of "understanding" they had just gained.
Dorn spoke, brow knit as if solving an impossible equation: "Father, You command the mightiest fleets, the most loyal Legions, and us—eighteen Primarch. Together we could crush any civilisation known."
"We do not understand why, in your eyes, this force is still insufficient to confront the enemy head-on, to the point that you must pin your hopes on a variable-ridden 'Webway Project' and our unquantifiable 'willpower.'"
"Yes, Father."
Guilliman rose as well; the strategist within his mind was already running simulations, yet every model collapsed before a single vast unknown variable.
"Any strategic decision is based on a cost-benefit assessment. You have chosen a plan of extreme risk—almost a last throw of the dice."
"It means that, in your evaluation, the 'risk of failure' of conventional methods far outweighs the 'risk of failure' of this gamble."
His voice turned icy: "What kind of terrifying foe could make you deem 'meeting them head-on' a path to certain defeat from the very start?"
"You are the Emperor!"
Russ let out a Beast-like growl, the sound filled with the purest bewilderment,
"There is no enemy the Space Wolves' claws and fangs cannot tear apart—be they xenos, ghosts, or gods!"
"Why not simply tell us their names and point us toward them? We are your executioners!"
"We were born for you, to kill the vermin you disdain to crush with your own hand!"
"What sort of'sickness,' what sort of 'plague,'" Sanguinius's voice was soft yet carried the heaviest of questions,
"could make you decide that your sons are unworthy even to know it exists? That our courage, our loyalty, our love would crumble before it?"
"What depth of despair have you seen?"
This time, even the future traitors were gripped by the same confusion.
Lorgar's fanatical faith wavered for the first time.
He could accept his father's 'atheism' as strategy, but he could not grasp what false god could trouble his 'true-god father' so greatly.
A hoarse whisper came from Mortarion's respirator.
He despised the Emperor's sorcery, yet he could not deny the Emperor's power.
An enemy so vile and terrifying that even such a mighty 'tyrant' chose escape and sought another path—what could it be?
Perturabo's cold, logical mind raced.
He could understand sacrificing a few pawns to build a grand work.
But he could not fathom what external threat could render the entire board unsafe and force the player to flip the table and start anew.
Eighteen gazes—eighteen demigods standing at humanity's martial and intellectual pinnacle—united in thought as never before.
They no longer dwelt on past lies; together they stared into the deeper abyss of a future they could not comprehend.
Like children who had just learned to count and were suddenly told that beyond the numbers they grasped lies a concept called 'infinity.'
Its mere existence rendered all their calculations meaningless.
These evil gods... this Chaos... how vast is their 'infinity'?
So vast that their father—the seemingly omnipotent Emperor—must stake humanity's future on a gamble whose odds are unknown?
The Throne Room fell into deathly silence once more.
Every question converged into one.
"Father, tell us," Horus spoke for all his brothers. "What... is our true enemy?"
This time, the will upon the Golden Throne offered no elaborate explanation. After ten thousand years of solitude, that vast consciousness simply dropped a brief, undeniable command into every mind.
[Keep watching.]
[This screen will explain everything.]
As the thought faded, the dark screen that seemed able to swallow all light slowly flared to life again.
This time it showed no Chaos god's realm nor recounted any Imperial history.
At its center appeared a single line of cold, fateful text formed of blood and fire.
[the dark king]