"Horus, Mom loves you. Go trick Chaos for subsidies first. As long as you die at Sanguinius's hands in the end, Mom can pull you back."
Caleb ultimately passed this message along on behalf of the Emperor. Truth be told, these words were genuinely stomach-churning.
If the Emperor and Horus used to interact like this in the past, it would indeed have turned Horus into a mama's boy.
However, as the words fell, a deep sorrow settled over Horus's expression. Cheating Chaos out of subsidies was simple—even now, Horus could keep his sanity enough to pull off the scam.
The issue was that the genuine power granted by the Four Gods made it exceedingly difficult to die.
Once the body sensed a crisis, it would automatically fight based on instinct.
At the same time, the power of the Four Gods carried a mental imprint. For example, what the Chaos Gods currently wanted most was to destroy Cadia.
Even if he did not want to right now, he had no choice; because of the mental imprint, resisting it would only accelerate his demise.
Because of this, the current Horus could only hope that Sanguinius and the others would hurry up so he could die quickly and meet Emperor-Mom!
In just a moments, a defense map of Cadia appeared in Horus's hands.
To be honest, even in Horus's eyes, this was a heavily fortified fortress world.
Yet such a fortress world was still somewhat too weak compared to the invincible fortress built by a certain good brother of his.
"Heh, the flaws are still quite obvious!"
Horus had just activated the Blackstone Fortress once. After the intense bombardment, the planet's defensive force was completely exposed.
The planet's void shields had actually managed to block the Blackstone Fortress's Abaddon-class extermination beam.
One had to know that this beam could shatter large planets directly, yet the fortress held.
"Abaddon, come here. Next, I will teach you how to conquer the Cadian fortress within ten hours!"
"Tell me, if it were you, how would you plan to attack this fortress?"
"I want to hear how you've improved. After all, you are the Warmaster of Chaos now!"
At the mention of the words "Warmaster of Chaos," Abaddon fell silent for a moment before laying out his plan as his father instructed.
In truth, there was no real strategy—just a brute-force assault.
Using near-absolute numerical superiority, he would directly concentrate force on a single point and break through.
Furthermore, he could take this opportunity to discard the Chaos factions that refused to obey him.
This way, he could not only eliminate those factions but also capture the target objective.
Looking at Abaddon's resolute and unquestioning tone, Horus could tell that this guy had indeed grown quite a bit.
Unfortunately, he was still a bit green when it came to tactical strategy. His siege tactics might need some tuning from Perturabo.
After all, in his eyes, this seemingly detailed plan still had too many loopholes.
"The thought process is decent, but it is clearly not the optimal solution!"
"While this plan can wear down those opposing Chaos factions, you have fallen right into the gods' trap!"
"How could that be?" Abaddon wanted to object.
Then, Horus's next words instantly silenced him.
"You send out the Khorne cultists for a direct assault, unaware that these war-crazed fiends love slaughter above all else!"
"This move will inevitably draw down divine blessings, making the Khorne faction even stronger. Your seemingly balanced political maneuvers are actually nothing more than calculations by a certain entity."
"You have been thoroughly played. Every balance and calculation you make is merely satisfying the Chaos Gods!"
Bang!
Suddenly, Horus raised his gun and shot a nearby Tzeentch sorcerer dead.
This Tzeentch sorcerer had done nothing wrong; Horus simply wanted him to taste a piece of change.
"This—"
Horus suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. Only now did he realize that all his thoughts and intentions were merely part of a larger plan.
Perhaps at some point, his mind had already been influenced by these Chaos followers.
He was merely indulging in the wishful thinking that he could never be affected by Chaos, just like his father once did.
"Alright, drag this corpse away!"
"Although I really do want to clean out these damn filthy things, it is clearly impossible to wipe them clean now!"
"Next, I will command the Black Legion personally to demonstrate a sequence for you!"
"I will show you how to rapidly conquer this fortress within ten hours without any reinforcements being able to arrive!"
Horus tapped his finger, quickly setting that target location as the point of attack.
As if receiving an absolute command, the entire legion began executing it immediately.
These Black Legion veterans—even though corrupted by Chaos—remained loyal to their Primarch.
"For Lupercal!"
Following a battle cry, hundreds of veterans raided the target location.
This was an energy room guarded by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Ordinarily, such a heavily fortified area would be nearly impossible to take with a sudden raid.
However, right at that moment, Horus ordered the Expedition Fleet to intensify the bombardment.
At this time, the vast majority of defenders could not hold the core area, because the heat generated by the current reactor was no longer something normal people could endure.
Soon, a scene from ten thousand years ago played out before Abaddon's eyes once more.
His father commanded several units in a coordinated offensive as if playing a piano.
Once a unit accomplished its objective, he would command it to immediately move on to the next.
Moreover, every objective acted like a fixed command, giving every legion a direction and operational goal. It was impossible for units to sit idle, and equally impossible for them to stop and rest.
Lightning-fast maneuvers unfolded across the frontline.
At this exact moment, even Lion, who was hacking through enemies on the frontlines, had to stop and direct his small number of sons.
"Damn it!"
"How are the Chaos forces coordinating so well? How did they get so much stronger?"
"Are these all Black Legion veterans?"
"Why does this style of warfare look so much like his?"
Sanguinius also noticed Lion's deeply furrowed brow. Now, their pace inevitably had to slow down to process the battlefield information.
Lion was bearing the brunt of the pressure, commanding on the frontlines while personally engaged in combat.
Operations of this caliber frequently brought him out in a cold sweat. At times, his body even struggled under the overload, requiring Sanguinius's help to re-adjust.
"What is it, Lion? Has another defensive line been breached?"
"If we can't hurry up and kill Horus quickly, we might be in big trouble!"
"Horus might already be taking command of the troops. If this drags on any longer, what stands before us as an obstacle might be a endless stream of Luna Wolves veterans."
Sanguinius stopped joking around. No matter how wicked his sense of humor was, he would never pull a fast one on his dear sister at a time like this.
Joking around on regular days and designing idol debut outfits for his dear sisters was fine.
When it came to battle, everyone fought with utmost seriousness; this was Sanguinius's bottom line.
"I'm fine—it's just that another half-company was wiped clean by that damned Black Legion!"
"These were sons I cultivated with great effort. Losing so many truly breaks my heart!"
With Horus joining the battle, the Dark Angels supporting Lion were now falling like snowflakes.
The opponent was also a Primarch, whose command capabilities had reached the absolute apex.
In the past, Lion could rely on Abaddon's inferior tactical command to bully him and trade favorably, but now that the guy's dad was online, the easy ride was over.
Judging by the enemy's advance speed, this guy seemed to plan on taking the Cadian fortress within five hours.
The defenders deployed by Horus and Sanguinius certainly could not hold out that long.
Their group had to race against time to stop the destruction of Cadia.
"Celestine, hold off the reinforcements behind us!"
"Though I know this is difficult, if we do not slay that traitor Primarch, the entire planet will be destroyed under that terrible firepower before long!"
The two Primarchs could only pin their hopes on Celestine.
After all, Celestine's combat capability was quite high. Sending her to intercept the enemy reinforcements might buy them enough time.
"Understood!" Celestine answered without a moment's hesitation. Having realized the identity of the two, she no longer questioned the Primarchs' orders.
"I will hold your rear with my life!"
"Rest assured. Just push forward, and I guarantee no small fry behind you will get anywhere near you!"
Celestine raised the Ardent Blade and charged toward the rear.
She practically ignored the incoming bolt rounds, pushing forward while taking the hits head-on.
Every slash of her blade left a clean, precise cut.
A deluge of bolt rounds slammed into her body, only to be turned away by her specialized armor.
The Emperor's light completely enveloped the surroundings—yet even with the Emperor's protection, taking so many Chaos weapons head-on was bound to take a toll.
"Heh—"
Indentations were punched into her chest armor one after another.
The light surrounding her dimmed slightly.
For Celestine, it was merely facing death once again.
Yet Celestine did not care in the slightest; she had endured this cycle several times before.
"Are we almost there?"
Sanguinius and Lion cut their way toward the center of the fortress.
The path was choked with all sorts of chaos—daemons, cultists, and even traitor Astartes.
There were dozens of Dreadnoughts alone, likely the ancient heritage of several chapters.
Fortunately, with two Primarchs fighting side by side, these enemies could not hold them back for long.
Even when facing heavy bolter strafes from the Dreadnoughts, Lion would recklessly activate his skills and charge straight through.
"Hey!"
"Lion, don't treat me like a healer!"
"Even though I can use my power to mend your wounds, keeping this barrier active still wastes my energy, okay?"
Pulling the broadsword from the Dreadnought's sarcophagus, Lion offered Sanguinius an embarrassed smile.
"Ah, I can't help it. Your skill is just too satisfying and useful!"
"By the way, why is the healing method a hug? Given my height, my head ends up buried right in your chest!"
"Mmhmm~"
Seeing Lion still making jokes under these circumstances, Sanguinius could not help teasing her.
"Haha—even the serious Sister Lion has turned out like this!"
"I wonder if Guilliman will laugh at you if he finds out?"
"Aha!"
"Him?"
A look of disdain flashed across Lion's face, mixed with a hint of embarrassment.
"Forget it, don't tell him. If you do, I'll probably have to drag Guilliman into another beatdown."
At this point, Sanguinius simply smiled without saying another word.
As the former Emperor of the Imperium Secundus, he knew the relationship between Lion and Guilliman all too well.
Back when he was on the throne, the two were constantly in a state of mutual annoyance paired with mutual cooperation.
They would hurl insults at each other calling the other useless, yet when real work needed doing, they had to rely on each other. They were truly a pair of living comedy routines.
Regrettably, memories of those days were sparse. After all, it wasn't long before he charged toward Terra and was torn to shreds.
For Sanguinius, this battle was perhaps a chance to wash away that past shame.
He had to prove to the Emperor that he could live up to Mom's expectations.
Just as the two Primarchs approached the command center, another force of reinforcements arrived late to the scene.
It was an Adeptus Mechanicus fleet. Using some unknown relic, they had arrived in planetary orbit at extreme speed.
Faced with the massive size and overwhelming firepower of the Blackstone Fortress, this fleet naturally chose not to draw close.
However, they dispatched a substantial number of reinforcements to assist the precariously holding frontline.
"Wow, it's Dora-Cawl!"
Seeing the newcomer, Caleb recognized the giant unit at a glance. On the Warhammer tabletop, the Cawl unit was quite a popular pick.
Of course, that didn't mean his deployment rate was exceptionally high, but rather that his popularity was notably higher than that of ordinary tabletop miniatures.
Most players who played Adeptus Mechanicus would do everything possible to get their hands on Cawl's model.
After all, for anyone who knew the lore, who could refuse adding an all-powerful Dora-Cawl to their army list?
At this moment, the place Cawl was headed was nowhere else than the very fortress Horus was relentlessly attacking.
Deep beneath the fortress lay an enormous blackstone fragment.
Adjacent to this fragment stood a Blackstone Obelisk, which served as the core allowing Cadia to nullify the warp.
"Such a bizarre and mysterious creation. It must be this very object that has preserved the tranquility of the galaxy!"
Facing this strange construct from tens of millions of years ago, Cawl felt a sense of bewilderment for the first time, as the operation mechanism of this Blackstone Obelisk was completely different from any obelisk he had encountered before.
This placed Cawl in an immediate dilemma, for he knew full well that the Imperium desperately needed this obelisk.
"Interesting!"
Yet another intriguing piece appeared on the board.
That's right—it was Trazyn the Infinite, a collector of miniatures, a recorder of history.
"Abominable Intelligence!"
"It's you!"
For reasons unknown to Cawl, within his endless memories, he felt as though he had encountered this strange figure many times before.
Cawl understood that this entity harbored no malice toward him, yet purely out of subconscious instinct, he still deemed the other an Abominable Intelligence.
"Perhaps you require some guidance. You are utterly incapable of comprehending the secrets of the obelisk!"
"As one of its former builders, I should indeed offer you some direction!"
"At the same time, as a witness to history, I eagerly anticipate the changes that will unfold once you activate it!"
Trazyn the Infinite spoke in his usual mysterious manner.
He had originally come here to collect miniatures, though his master balls didn't seem to have succeeded in capturing anything.
"Why should I trust you?" Faced with Trazyn's offer of help, the cautious Archmagos did not accept immediately.
"Given a few days to study it, I might be able to crack the obelisk's secrets myself." [Binary Language.]
"Hahaha!" Trazyn burst into laughter, his mechanical laughter sounding exceedingly strange.
This joke was equivalent to saying a monkey could construct aircraft and artillery.
Trazyn naturally believed a monkey could operate aircraft and artillery, but manufacturing them was virtually impossible.
"So perhaps given enough time, you might figure it out, but by then, this planet will have long been destroyed!"
"You don't intend to conduct your research amidst the ruins, do you? Of course, you could do that too; it makes no difference to me!"
The rational Cawl pondered for a moment before ultimately deciding to accept the assistance of Trazyn the Infinite.