Hiss—
Eden couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
That guy Jaghatai Khan was simply too efficient—just went out for a little spin and casually butchered a pile of xenos along the way?!
Truly worthy of the Primarch of the White Scars. Even taking a walk, he could cut down aliens for fun.
Eden could tell that the severed head belonged to a Dark Eldar Archon of the Black Heart Kabal—one of the more infamous and named figures of Commorragh.
As for the others? Not even worth remembering.
Any high-ranking Archon came with formidable security and a well-armed retinue.
That meant Khan, in such a short time, had already cut through the Kabal's forces, pierced their formation, and beheaded their leader.
"Good thing Khan didn't run into the Redemption Satellite Zone's units. If he had chopped them down, I'd be taking a massive loss…"
Eden let out a breath of relief.
He had spent an enormous fortune to win over those Archons, counting on them to play their part in the grand plan to occupy Commorragh.
They couldn't just die like that.
Clearly, he'd need to hand Khan a "whitelist" soon, to make sure this steppe warlord didn't accidentally slaughter his own allies.
Khan casually handed the severed head and trophies over to a White Scar officer.
Beaming with excitement, the Primarch declared:
"I ran into a band of xenos on the road, so I lopped off their leader! The Pale Eagle is the perfect war machine—it allows me to carry out lightning strikes with unmatched speed.
Their vehicles and defensive formations couldn't even slow me down!"
According to Khan's account, he was tearing down the webway at breakneck speed when he spotted a suspicious xeno column. Without slowing down, he simply crashed into them and cut down their commander.
Not even a hint of deceleration.
Such a terrifyingly explosive charge had even caught Eden off guard.
After all, he had tried piloting the Pale Eagle himself. At hypersonic speeds, even he struggled to keep control—nearly smashed himself into the walls of the webway more than once.
Never mind fighting at those speeds.
But Khan had over ten thousand years of combat driving under his belt. To him, riding a vehicle was as natural as moving his own limbs—swift, instinctive, absolute mastery.
This relic of a war machine amplified the Primarch's power beyond reckoning.
Eden evaluated Khan's performance.
That Dark Eldar warband had numbered in the thousands, with plenty of war machines at their disposal—enough to wage a small planetary war.
Even Roboute Guilliman, leading a strike force, would have required time and effort to crack such defenses.
Khan, by contrast, shattered them in a single high-speed strike, before the enemy could even react.
Of course, that wasn't to belittle Guilliman.
Different strengths for different foes—Old Roboute was far more effective against Chaos.
Eden was merely using him as a convenient benchmark, though admittedly Guilliman had a habit of losing and needing Father to "switch on the cheat codes" to bail him out.
By rough power-scaling, Eden concluded:
"If the Emperor doesn't intervene, Khan on the Pale Eagle is about equal to… 1.65 Guillimans."
As for why he didn't use himself as a reference point—well, Eden's battles were usually one-sided massacres, decided by his overwhelming resources and "cash power."
Not exactly fair comparison. It's like comparing a F2P player with a 'whale'.
Besides, he specialized in overwhelming force and economic warfare. He rarely needed to personally fight to the death.
So how was that even comparable?
"Hm… since Khan is this powerful, maybe I should just have him go straight to Commorragh and chop Vect into pieces?"
Eden toyed with the idea of sending the White Scar Primarch to kill Asdrubael Vect, the Supreme Overlord.
But quickly abandoned the thought.
After all, Vect fought the same way Eden did—through guile, patience, and contingencies. The bastard had who knew how many clones and proxies.
Even if you killed him, he'd just come back.
Taking him down by brute force was nearly impossible. Worst case, Khan would risk his life only to destroy a decoy, while Vect unleashed some forbidden Aeldari relic.
A singularity bomb, perhaps—a portable black hole. No Primarch's body could withstand that.
Not even with psychic wards. He'd simply be sucked into some nameless abyssal dimension, lost for millennia once more.
Eden grimaced. Khan had only just returned to the Imperium. It wouldn't do to have him vanish back into the webway for another ten thousand years.
So no—Vect could not be killed with simple physical force.
He was like Fabius Bile, that twisted "apothecary of chaos." No matter how many times you killed him, he always crawled back to plague the galaxy. Even the Dark Gods themselves couldn't quite be rid of him.
Fortunately, Vect's personal combat power wasn't exceptional.
The true way to defeat him was to strip him of his political power—reduce him to social death.
Once cast down from the throne, whether Vect lived or died was irrelevant.
He'd be reduced to a rat in the gutters, hunted by every enemy he ever made.
While Eden mulled this over…
Khan reluctantly dismounted from the Pale Eagle, switching it to cleansing mode. The sacred machine began purging the blood and grime, coating itself with anointing oils and polishing its armor plating.
A most "user-friendly" design.
Of course, Khan also took time to personally wipe its core armor, diligently polishing with his own hands.
While doing so, his eyes fell upon the overturned Moon Dragon—his old, customized jetbike, his faithful steed of millennia.
He rushed to right it, patting the frame with a look of faint sorrow.
Inside, the gears still turned. The machine-spirit seemed to sense its master, reaching out to rekindle the bond with its creator.
Clank.
And then—Khan promptly stripped some of its Primarch-level weaponry and lovingly mounted them onto the Pale Eagle instead.
Once you'd tasted the speed and power of this new steed, how could you ever go back to the old one?
There was no return.
The Moon Dragon would be retired, preserved in the hangar like a veteran too old for war.
A war machine's equivalent of unemployment.
Khan stroked the rune-etched alloy of the Pale Eagle, satisfaction glowing in his eyes.
This was a treasure given by his brother.
And when he saw his sons, the White Scars, all now mounted on their own grav-bikes, his joy doubled.
Now he could lead his sons in true White Scar fashion—full-speed cavalry charges across the battlefield!
As for the fact that his sons adored the "Primarch of Hope" more than they did their gene-father?
What did it matter?
That brother had given them such glorious steeds.
In Khan's heart, even the Emperor himself now ranked second. His bond with Eden, his brother, came first.
He had resolved—he would fight side by side with his brother, bringing about the great revival of humanity.
Just as Eden himself had said: Make the Imperium great again!
"Lord Savior!"
An Inquisitor rushed into the hall, followed closely by a White Scar officer, both of them wearing grim expressions.
"The Drukhari intelligence has been decrypted?"
Eden's brow furrowed.
They were tasked with analyzing the severed head and trophies Khan had brought back, hoping to extract any scraps of information.
"According to the Tech-Priests, one of the trophies may be the activation device for a forbidden weapon."
The Inquisitor projected a dataslate into Eden's display, reporting steadily:
"The interrogators also extracted fragments of soul-memory from the Archon. Their destination was the Redemption Satellite Zone.
It appears they intended to carry out a devastating strike…"
The report sank cold dread into Eden's chest.
Damn it. Vect's already making his move. He's targeting my satellite base.
The Black Heart Kabal had dispatched a strike force to the Redemption Zone, carrying forbidden weaponry.
Had Khan not stumbled upon them and cut them down, Eden's greatest stronghold in Commorragh could have been obliterated.
The Zone was his key foothold, the storehouse of immense soul reserves. If a forbidden relic detonated there—destroying vital facilities, or even entire landmasses—he would lose his power base.
Without it, he couldn't possibly contend with Vect.
Worse, how many such strike forces had been deployed?
The Redemption Zone sat in a tangle of webway routes—narrow, choked, impassable to capital ships, yet perfect for infiltrating ground forces.
Defending it fully was almost impossible.
Infiltration was inevitable.
Eden clenched his fist. No matter what, he must protect the Zone. Its destruction would doom his entire campaign.
"Brother, just give the word—how shall we crush these damned xenos?"
Khan leaned forward eagerly, ready to obey.
He instinctively took his place as the vanguard, placing Eden in command.
This was exactly how Khan preferred it.
He loved freedom and the open road—but in war, he thrived on taking orders as a general, unleashed to charge and conquer.
Not trapped in the mire of politics or paperwork.
It had been the same during the Great Crusade.
But after the Emperor was bound to the Golden Throne, the White Scar Primarch had lost his direction. The Heresy shattered the Imperium, and his spirit with it.
He rode into the webway to vent his fury against the Drukhari—only to lose himself in its twisted pathways and warped time-streams.
One angry detour, and he was gone for ten thousand years.
The Imperium, left to rot without him.
Officially, they claimed he vanished during the Battle of Chondax, chasing a Drukhari Archon into the webway.
But now—now he had found new purpose.
The Imperium's ideals reborn. A brother he could trust. A cause to believe in.
Jaghatai Khan had once more found his fire.
And the enemies of mankind would once again be trampled beneath the thunder of White Scar cavalry charges.
"Brother," Eden said with a grin, "with you and your sons at my side, things just got much simpler. You'll exploit your unmatched mobility in the webway—strike fast, strike hard, and tear those Drukhari apart!"
Eden felt deep relief at Khan's return.
This was a tremendous boon—solving his most urgent crisis.
Together with the White Scar Primarch, they devised defensive tactics. Large numbers of Ork mercenaries and Dark Eldar turncoats were scattered throughout the webway nodes, serving as eyes and ears.
Meanwhile, Khan led the White Scars, forming multiple high-speed decapitation strike teams that patrolled the webway near the Redemption Satellite Zone.
With the aid of detailed maps, their operations became razor precise.
Once their scouts or the Orks detected signs of a Dark Eldar strike force, the White Scars would immediately descend upon them, behead their commanders, and seize or destroy any forbidden weapons they carried.
Thus would they safeguard the Redemption Zone and buy precious time for the Primarch of Hope's grand plan.
Soon, the riders of the steppes—Khan's cyber-cavalry—were sweeping through the webway like hunting hawks, ever seeking prey.
...
Some time earlier.
Webway, near a branch route close to the Redemption Satellite Zone.
The ground was littered with wreckage—shattered machinery, wrecked Raider skimmers overturned, and Talos pain engines torn apart, writhing and shrieking in agony.
Many Kabalite warriors of the Kabal of Spite lay groaning on the ground, blasted by explosions.
Fear showed in their eyes.
More troops massed together, building layers of defensive lines.
Yet an ominous shadow hung over them, as if some ghostly terror might reappear at any moment to reap more lives.
At the center of their formation, a transport skimmer belched smoke, its hull bearing a massive molten hole.
The command chamber—where their Archon had stood—was burned clean through by some weapon of searing energy.
"What… what in the Dark City happened here?"
Vice-Archon Vruk of the Kabal of Spite staggered, his armor spattered with blood.
Beside him lay the Archon's headless corpse.
They had been tasked by Supreme Overlord Vect himself to transport forbidden weaponry through the webway and strike at the Redemption Satellite Zone.
Ambitious, they hoped to cripple the Zone and earn the Overlord's favor.
But no sooner had they neared the Zone than something unknown had struck.
From the Dark Eldar perspective—
At the turning of the webway, a sharp-headed mechanical beast had burst out of nowhere.
Before their gunners could even lock on, a heavy Raider was flipped end over end.
Then the machine had rammed straight through the command ship—and vanished.
Vruk was stunned.
One moment he had been indulging with concubine and soul, the next—explosions, white light, and then his Archon was dead.
He stared at the headless corpse. His face trembled with grief—then twisted into a grin.
"This is good. That bastard deserved death long ago."
How many nights had Vruk lain awake, dreaming of killing his master and taking his place?
And now fate itself had done the deed for him.
He lifted a glass of blood-champagne, smirking as he proclaimed himself the new Archon.
As for the attacker, he reasoned, it must have been one of Commorragh's ghost warriors—mythic terrors of the webway.
Such calamities struck from time to time. Sometimes even She Who Thirsts' own horrors stalked the webway. Nothing could be done but endure.
Surely he wouldn't be so unlucky as to meet the ghost warrior twice.
And if the thing struck again, he'd simply adjust his defenses.
But the new Archon soon faced another problem.
Without the late Archon's core device, they could not activate the forbidden weapon.
If he returned to Commorragh empty-handed, he and the Kabal of Spite would suffer Vect's exquisite punishments—perhaps flayed alive and hung upon the Chains of the Forest.
"We cannot go back like this…"
Vruk shuddered. The Overlord's wrath was always paralyzing.
So he schemed anew.
Other Kabals had also been sent to strike the Zone. He would ally with one of them, combine their power, and still achieve results—though at the cost of paying dearly for aid.
Soon, the Kabal of Spite marched under Vruk's banner to join another Kabal, one armed with antimatter void-torpedoes.
They would help deliver those torpedoes into the Zone.
The ally agreed.
But before Vruk could celebrate—he heard that sound again.
The rising thunder of engines.
"No… Ghost Warriors!"
His face went pale.
He flared every defense device he carried, hiding deep within the command ship's armored core, screaming at his fellow Archon:
"Activate every defense! Set obstacles—or we are finished!"
The two Kabals joined their defenses.
But this time, it was not a lone ghost warrior.
It was the ghost warrior—and his sons.
Hundreds of them.
"Hahahaha! White Scars, faster! Faster still!"
Khan rode the Pale Eagle at impossible speed, plasma contrails cloaking his sons' approach.
Their velocity made them invisible.
There was an old saying among the White Scars:
"If you can see the White Scars, then you are in danger. But if you cannot see us, and only hear our laughter—then death is already upon you."
The Drukhari faced this very doom. They heard the engines. But could not tell from where.
Vrrroooom—
The Pale Eagle streaked past, its wing-blades shearing a Talos in two.
A moment later, Khan's White Tiger Blade cut down a Drukhari commander, his head flying before the blood even sprayed.
Then the laughter surrounded them—more White Scars on grav-falcons, circling like wolves.
Each pack struck at weak points, precise and deadly.
This was the White Scars' way of war.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The Drukhari fired grav-spikes, dark lances, terror grenades—
But by then the White Scars were already among them, hacking with power blades at close quarters.
Chapter Master Jubal himself rode at his Primarch's side, a massive power blade in hand, roaring:
"For the Khan and the Emperor!"
The sons of the Khan echoed: "For the Khan and the Emperor!"
But then… something felt wrong to them. Incomplete.
So Jubal added, loudly: "And for the Savior!"
Roar!
Now the White Scars howled with true ferocity.
"For the Savior!"
Their voices rose, savage and exultant, as they drove their throttles harder, their blades swinging faster.
The First Chaplain of the Chapter frowned in thought. Perhaps the war cry itself must be changed. The Savior must be named.
But the Emperor too must remain—he could not be excluded.
"For the Savior and the Emperor?" he mused. "That has a fine ring…"
And so it spread. A new war cry rang across the battlefields—shouts for the Savior, but no mention of the Khan.
Khan could only sigh.
After ten thousand years lost, his place in his sons' hearts had slipped beneath that of his brother.
Primarchs could not command loyalty purely by blood. It came from the devotion and love of their sons.
And sometimes, betrayal happened. Like Typhus, who had all but murdered his own father, Mortarion.
So this new war cry was born of the White Scars' own hearts. That was its meaning.
Could Khan really quarrel with his sons and brother over this? Not while he still rode the Pale Eagle—his brother's gift.
But the matter could not be left unaddressed.
He quietly approached the First Chaplain, suggesting that the Emperor could be omitted from the cry—honored in the heart, not shouted aloud.
Thus, the White Scars' war cry was formally changed to:
"For the Savior and the Khan!"
It was a compromise that satisfied all. A cry of unity. Savior and Khan, side by side, pursuing the same dream.
After crushing the enemy command, Khan and his sons disabled and towed away the forbidden torpedoes.
They split into strike packs, scattering in different directions. Never giving the Drukhari time to regroup or surround them.
Always strike fast, vanish faster.
And when new intelligence arrived, they would assemble again to strike.
Aboard a Drukhari command ship…
Archon Vruk crawled from the rubble, still shaken. Around him lay the mangled corpses of his supposed allies.
The attack had been so swift that no one could resist.
"What tragedy… my ally slain, his very soul shredded…" he muttered.
Such was the work of the ghost warrior—or rather, an Imperial Primarch.
Then—Vruk paused. His eyes lit up.
If his allied Archon and his lieutenants were all dead… then he could seize their Kabal as well.
Wasting no time, he unleashed his Incubi to slaughter every survivor who resisted, folding the Kabal into his own.
Two battles later, far from weakened, his power had doubled.
He had risen to a whole new echelon of strength.
It was destiny, he decided. A gift of fate.
Yet Vect's mission still had to be completed.
So Vruk turned to yet another Kabal in possession of forbidden weapons.
He set his course to join them…
(End of Chapter)
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