In the Lion's blurred vision, there was only a mass of golden light.
From that light stepped a figure in azure ceramite. A golden iron cross and laurel crown blazed above his helm, and blue witchfire rolled off his armor in waves.
With a sharp wrench, he tore a bone-forged, psyker-charged blade from the back of the Lord of Change.
It was the Eldar crone-sword artifact, the Sword of the Silent Scream, the very weapon that had just drained the fate-weaver's life away.
"Die, heretic!"
Thunderous fury shook in the blue-armored figure's voice as he swung the other blade in his hands, the legendary power sword known as the Truehearted.
In a long, screaming arc, he split the fallen fate-weaver cleanly in two.
The double-bladed silhouette radiated raw authority.
As he moved, the features beneath the helm came into focus: a face with the chiseled severity of marble.
Warmth touched the Lion's heart.
It was that insufferable nuisance, Roboute Guilliman.
A piercing eagle-cry cut through the din, and a gale rolled across the battlefield.
In the air appeared a silver-white figure wreathed in a faint, burning wind. Mechanical, bone-like argent wings spread from his back, winking with the motes of a disintegration field.
That was the artifact Pale Silver Wings.
"You're too slow, Chaos cur!"
The silver-white figure roared. His mechanical pinions blurred into storm and shadow as he lashed out at the Bloodthirster above.
The disintegration field along the wing-blades sheared through the daemon's warped bone axe and butchered its wings in the same stroke.
Bellowing in fury, the Bloodthirster lost balance and smashed down into a ruin, throwing up a cloud of dust and stone.
The silver figure folded his wings and dropped to the Lion's side, and the tattoos marking him out left no doubt of his identity.
He was the Eagle of Chogoris: the Khan.
Between the two of them, the golden light grew ever more intense.
That was the source of the radiance, hurling out arcs of golden lightning, exerting a pressure that drew every gaze on the field.
Even the Lion could not help turning his head toward it. The familiar psychic signature rising from within stirred an almost unbelievable thought in his chest.
His pupils contracted sharply.
"Such vast psychic power… can it be…?"
It wasn't just him. Every mind present was transfixed by that glowing sphere, breath unconsciously held.
"No… no!!!"
Suddenly, a scream of pure despair burst from the light, making hearts lurch all around.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
From the glow strode a towering figure clad in heavy, red-gold armor.
An aureole of crimson flame burned above his head; his warplate shed a soft, yellow radiance; and a blood-red cloak streamed down his back. Everything about him was sacred and crushingly imposing.
In his gauntleted grip, he held a writhing Chaos foe aloft: a Slaaneshi Greater Daemon, a Masque-dancer.
Created by the Prince of Pleasure as the ultimate expression of the perfect dancer, the Masque-dancer was an assassination engine. It could beguile prey with a myriad of exquisite masks, move with impossible grace, and all but vanish into clinging mists before driving venomous blades into the hearts of its targets.
Yet this peerless assassin now thrashed and howled like a trapped animal in the hands of that red-gold giant.
Aaaah!!!
The Masque-dancer's shrieks climbed to their peak, echoing over the entire area.
Before the eyes of all, the red-gold figure simply braced his arms and pulled.
With a wet, tearing rip, he split the Greater Daemon in half. Filthy, clotted blood sprayed in an arc, spattering the ground, while the lightning claws raised in his other hand seemed to claw at the soul itself.
One of the most brutal sights in the galaxy, or in the warp, unfolded then and there:
A Greater Daemon, torn apart bare-handed.
The spectacle froze the faces of every Greater Daemon present.
Then, as they processed what they had just seen, a new, deeper terror spread among them.
The figure before them was far too familiar. Every warp-denizen of any stature knew that shape; it was etched into the deepest strata of their being.
It was a nightmare legend in the Immaterium.
Flame-wreathed crown. The One True Armour. The Holy Sword.
Every higher daemon knew these hated relics as intimately as Imperial citizens knew the image of their greatest lord.
In truth, the silhouette had soaked into both warp and galaxy alike.
All the signs pointed to one absurd conclusion:
The Cursed One. The False Emperor. The Emperor of legend.
For a heartbeat, several Greater Daemons actually whimpered in dread.
"Blood God…"
"The Cursed One… this is impossible!"
"A lie. A false destiny. This cannot be!"
"He can't be the Cursed One. The False Emperor is dead. His bones rot on the Throne!"
At the sight of that accursed form, an instinctive panic rose in their corrupted hearts. They stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide.
Even those who doubted what they were seeing dared not move first.
Such was the power of true dread: it bolstered allies, shattered enemy morale, and in the best case rendered battle unnecessary.
"Fa… father?!"
The Lion's heart shuddered. Tears pricked his eyes at the edge as he voiced the question.
"I am the Primarch Savior, Emperor of Mankind, the Sun of Hope."
The golden figure spoke at last. Raising his head, he revealed a face of impossible beauty, stamped with a trace of sovereign gravity.
Eden slowly lifted his gaze to the Greater Daemons before him, and by presence alone froze them in place.
"Eater of Daemons."
At that single declaration, the daemons understood.
They shook off the shackles of the Cursed One's fear-legend, but still they could not stop themselves from edging backward a few steps.
In today's galaxy, the reputation of the Hope Primarch, the Savior, the Eater of Daemons, stood just a sliver below that of the Cursed One himself. It was more than enough to make any daemon wary.
Especially those Khorne-fiends who had recently endured his "Hundred-Ton King" sky-drill charge.
The Bloodthirster who had just been pounding on the Lion reacted on sheer instinct: he snatched the Primarch up like a riot shield and held him in front of his body, as though expecting an immediate sneak attack from the Eater of Daemons.
Hum…
Eden ignited the Holy Sword, and golden flame leapt along its blade.
He stepped forward, his tone turning icy.
"I strongly advise you to release Brother Lion. Otherwise what awaits you will be torments far crueler than death."
At his side, Guilliman and the Khan lit their weapons as well.
The three Primarchs formed up with the Savior at the center, a triple-pronged spear aimed straight at the knot of Greater Daemons.
The battle could erupt in the next heartbeat.
"The Savior's here. The Khan too. And that annoying bastard. Kalisde's people will be saved. My sons will live…"
The Lion hung in mid-air, every nerve screaming with pain.
He looked at the silhouettes of his brothers and felt his spinning thoughts slowly clear. Relief and joy flickered in his eyes.
Then, in the very next instant, the First Primarch froze.
Because in the reflected light off their armor, he caught sight of himself.
The once-noble features of his face were swollen and bruised. His lips looked like they belonged in a slapstick sketch.
The faux Savior golden armor he wore was flaking and cracked, barely clinging to his body. Plates gaped open everywhere.
He looked, frankly, like a beaten-down weakling, utterly helpless and utterly defeated.
And his brothers?
Every one of them stood resplendent in gleaming warplate.
With all the image work, premium materials, and maximal effect overlays from the Savior's domain, they were even more godlike and awe-inspiring than in the Great Crusade.
One glance told you these were overwhelming Primarchs.
Side by side, the contrast was brutal. The gulf between them felt as wide as a star-sea. How could there be this much difference between one Primarch and another?
If other eyes saw this, especially the warriors of the Imperium, what would they think?
To the Lion, the disparity and the disgrace of the scene were intolerable. He felt less like the First Primarch than a candidate for exile.
It was sheer, unvarnished misery.
In his mind's ideal version of events, he would fight bravely for three full Terran days and then rendezvous in honor with the Savior and their brothers.
They would stand shoulder to shoulder among the stars, driving out the heretic filth. How glorious that would be.
Reality, however, had turned out rather different.
He had overextended chasing Greater Daemons, blundered into a trap, and been swarmed. The beating that followed was the worst defeat of his life.
Worse, this moment of utter humiliation was being witnessed by every other Primarch present.
Not just them, either. Greater Daemons, Chaos Marines, and half the damned battlefield were all watching.
This wasn't a rescue anymore. This was a relief operation for a failed Primarch. His brothers had come to save a pathetic loser.
For any warrior, such a thing was hard to accept.
You could fall. You could even die. But not like this. Not dragged out and displayed to the entire theater.
This was the execution of one's honor, in public.
It was just like what had happened to Guilliman once.
The last time he boarded Fulgrim's flagship for a duel, he'd walked straight into a trap. The fallen Phoenician had beaten him senseless and left him in a heap.
Roboute had been carried off nearly comatose by his own gene-sons, his legendary weapon still lying on the enemy warship. It was a disaster.
That stain haunted him.
He'd jolted awake from nightmares in a cold sweat, hearing Fulgrim's laughter even now. For ten thousand years, the Phoenician had brandished that story as a trophy, bringing it up at every opportunity.
Again and again he used it to mock the Primarch of the Ultramarines and his sons.
The humiliation had grown so acute that the Ultramarines had formed an off-the-record kill team dedicated to hunting Fulgrim and scrubbing all trace of the incident.
A permanent, covert PR damage-control unit.
So Roboute had never truly let it go. He had longed for a rematch against Fulgrim, just to wash that stain away.
By comparison, the Lion's present defeat was even worse.
Back then, Roboute's debacle had been witnessed only by those on the ship, and it was his own sons who had carried him off.
The official line, outwardly, was that the Primarch of the Ultramarines had been the victim of a cowardly and dishonorable Chaos ambush.
Terms like "craven trap," "fought to the last," and "tragically overwhelmed by numbers" had been carefully scattered through the communiqués.
You couldn't exactly tell the galaxy: "Our Primarch boarded willingly and then got flattened by the fallen Primarch," now could you?
But this?
The Lion's bruised, swollen face, his tattered cosplay armor, his body dangling in a Bloodthirster's grip, all of it was being watched live by his brothers.
It was an ultimate humiliation, the kind you never fully scrub off.
"The Savior's first time seeing me in person, and it's like this. What must he be thinking, seeing the famed First Primarch, the Lion, beaten so badly?"
The Lion sucked in a ragged breath. A sour pressure gathered in his chest that he could hardly bear.
His gaze flicked over Guilliman's face, and his heart clenched all the harder.
"How will that damnable bastard see this?
The next time we argue, he'll bring it up, you know he will. 'Remember Kalisde? Remember how I had to save you?'
He'll milk this forever."
He and Roboute had never gotten along. They bickered as easily as breathing.
He could already picture the future arguments.
In every quarrel, Roboute would drag this day into it: how the Lion had been hammered into the dirt on Kalisde, how he'd been the one to pull him out.
Under that weight of history, how was he supposed to argue back?
He wouldn't even dare raise his voice.
It was the kind of secret shame a brother would dine out on for a lifetime.
The Lion had never imagined he could end up like this.
His only hope now was that none of it would be recorded. He didn't dare think about the consequences if it was.
For high-level warriors of the Imperium, honor meant more than life.
Otherwise that young knight back then wouldn't have shut himself away in shame after his own social-death moment, too embarrassed to show his face again.
But the worst was yet to come.
To his horror, he noticed the holo-projectors mounted on every Primarch's armor were active and recording.
"No…"
He squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to look any longer.
In realspace, only seconds had passed, but the First Primarch felt his heart turn to ash.
He turned his head away in anguish, unable to face what was happening.
"Brother Lion!"
His reaction only deepened the concern in the other three Primarchs' eyes.
Their glares locked on the Bloodthirster holding him, killing intent rolling across the ruins.
"?!"
"I… I haven't even done anything yet!"
Under the combined stare of the Eater of Daemons and two other Primarchs, the Greater Daemon of Khorne felt a twinge of fear despite himself.
He knew exactly how bad it would be if all three focused on him at once.
But shame flared almost immediately afterward, beating down the fear.
"Eater of Daemons, I do not fear you. I will become the chosen of the great Blood God and the other Dark Gods, blessed by all four!"
The Bloodthirster realized that if he could seize this chance and kill the Lion, the boons he'd receive would be beyond imagining.
Greed for warp-power drowned out everything else.
What he didn't know was that the Lion had just gone full redline under the weight of his disgrace.
In the blink of an eye, the daemon felt the grip in his hands surge with strength, followed by a jolt of searing pain.
"The Lion of Caliban does not fall in such shame!"
With a roar, the Lion ripped himself free.
He pivoted and slammed his head forward in a brutal headbutt, smashing the Bloodthirster off its feet.
He was no Magnus; he would not be drowned in humiliation.
The Primarch of the First Legion had a will that did not bend.
Dragging his wounded body, the Lion pounced with all the fury of his namesake.
He tackled the Bloodthirster to the ground and hammered its face with blow after armored blow.
A cracking snap sounded as he shattered one of its mighty horns, wrenching a scream from the Greater Daemon's throat.
"Kill the Lion!"
The other Greater Daemons at last came back to themselves.
They lunged toward him, only to strike empty air.
The Lion's form blurred like a mirage and vanished. A heartbeat later, he appeared in a new position, as if some teleport device had whisked him away.
But there was no machine, no sorcerous glyph.
It was his own power.
For a moment, he had stepped into the warp and then back again.
At the same time, an unfamiliar jungle erupted across the ruins, trunks and undergrowth clawing up from nowhere. Warp energy was reshaping reality itself.
The Lion moved through that improvised forest with a hunter's ease, stalking the Greater Daemons like they were nothing more than quarry to be brought down.
"By the Emperor… what is happening?"
Guilliman could hardly credit what he was seeing: a full forest manifesting out of nowhere, right in front of him.
It was surreal.
At least, to a warp-illiterate like him.
"Brother Lion just blew the doors off his limits. Looks like he's finally getting a deeper grip on his own essence."
Eden watched with real feeling in his eyes.
This world was one of the key nodes in a titanic Chaos ritual. Multiple warp rifts and a suffocating concentration of warp-energy infused the place, allowing the Lion's true nature to seep into realspace.
Just as the Greater Daemons could bring in toxic fog, lava outbreaks, and other vile phenomena, the Lion could imprint his own inner landscape onto the world.
He might be only the second Primarch to wield his essence this deftly.
The first was the Raven King, who could dissolve into flocks of corvids and wander the Eye of Terror and the warp as a living storm.
With any luck, Corvus would be able to head off Lorgar before he joined this war.
"Let's clear the rabble out. In that state, Brother Lion won't be able to hold out for long."
Eden snapped up his forbidden-pattern bolt pistol and blew apart a lunging Flesh Hound, then swung the Holy Sword and carved his way forward.
Guilliman and the Khan roared their own battle-cries and charged their chosen targets.
It didn't take long before they linked up with the Lion.
Four Primarchs together swept the ambush force aside, wiping out every Greater Daemon that had taken part.
It was probably the greatest concentration of top-tier Imperial power seen in ten millennia, a walking cataclysm that no Greater Daemon could stand before.
The Tzeentchian Lords of Change were the first to read the signals. The instant they realized how bad things had gotten, they invoked their sorceries and fled.
A few weren't so lucky.
When the ambush line collapsed, they weren't fast enough.
They found themselves the hunted instead.
"Blood for—"
A Bloodthirster bellowed, trying to rally some kind of stand.
Then he realized there were no comrades left in sight.
Turning one way, he saw the Eater of Daemons closing in, Holy Sword blazing. He backed up until his back hit a giant tree.
"Eater of Daemons…"
Too afraid to charge Eden head-on, he tried another direction and found the twin-bladed Guilliman waiting.
He pivoted again and saw the White Scars Primarch.
Drawing a deep breath, he turned one last time… only to find himself staring into the storm-dark eyes of the Lion, whose face was twisted with fury.
"No…"
Despair swallowed him whole.
He understood perfectly well that escape was impossible when Primarchs blocked every route.
And there were four of them.
They closed in, tightening the ring step by step like an execution squad.
He trembled, and managed a last, pitiful testament.
"No… don't come any closer!"
One of Khorne's foremost Bloodthirsters sounded like a helpless little imp, on the verge of tears.
"Why are you shouting so loud?"
Eden grinned savagely and lunged.
The other three Primarchs followed. In a blizzard of crushing blows, they beat the Bloodthirster down and finished it off.
The last Greater Daemon in this section of the field was no more.
"Hm. Where did Fulgrim go?"
Guilliman frowned, belatedly remembering what he'd come down here for.
Eden sighed and clapped him on the shoulder.
"He pulled back as soon as we started teleporting down."
What he did not say was simple:
If Roboute's teleport hadn't been late, there might have been a chance to cut Fulgrim off.
Given the state Roboute had been in, he would have chased the Phoenician to the end of the galaxy if he'd seen him.
"Brothers… thank you. Without your help, I don't know how many lives would have been lost…"
The Lion looked like some feral jungle man, armor in tatters.
Dragging his exhausted body forward, he pulled each of his brothers into a fierce embrace and thanked them with uncharacteristic warmth.
Then a thought struck him.
He hesitated, looking earnestly from one Primarch to the next, a flicker of hope and no small anxiety in his eyes.
"Everything that happened today… is a secret. Right?"
"Sigh. We're brothers. Don't you trust us?"
Eden's tone could not have been more sincere. He and the others all smiled at him in a way that was… hard to parse.
The Lion's heart skipped a beat.
Before he could say anything else, an even more dreadful surge of warp-energy erupted across the battlefield…
(End of Chapter)
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