— The Blood Angels Legion —
Once again, Sanguinius heard the whispering voices at his ear.
The murmurs left his mind hazy and aching, accompanied by flashes of countless possible futures:
visions of him dying to protect his sons from a Warp daemon…
visions of him falling to an alien assassin…
visions of him slain by the hand of a brother—
or even by the Emperor himself.
Dozens of deaths.
Hundreds of endings.
All crowding into his mind at once.
"You should not die so meaninglessly," the distant voice hissed.
"Pledge yourself to me, and you shall have everything."
Sanguinius, calm yet resolute, replied just as he had before:
"Never."
The voice ignored his refusal and continued its slow, rasping persuasion:
"You and your sons hunger for blood.
Your hearts ache for slaughter.
Yet you chain yourselves with false ideals, suppressing instincts that should make you stronger."
"It is pointless.
Embrace what you desire.
Indulge in the ecstasy of carnage.
Only then will you reach your full strength…"
Sanguinius knew exactly what the entity was referring to:
The Red Thirst.
A genetic flaw without a known origin—
one that filled him and every Blood Angel with an overwhelming craving for violence, for blood, for flesh.
If allowed to swell unchecked, it reduced warriors to beasts.
In earlier times, before Sanguinius took command, the Blood Angels had been scorned as a legion of monsters—
the infamous "Flesh-Eaters."
Only after he guided and uplifted them through compassion, honor, and discipline…
only after they earned glory across the Great Crusade…
did that hateful name finally disappear.
Now, despite the sinister voice gnawing at him, Sanguinius simply closed his eyes and refused to give it further attention.
Words would not dissuade this entity—
so silence would serve instead.
"You possess the sight of prophecy," the whisper murmured on.
"You know doom approaches the Imperium.
Perhaps you can face death calmly…
but what of your sons?"
"The Red Thirst will haunt them forever.
Bound by your ideals, they will suffer agony without end—
until madness claims them…"
And still, the voice continued.
---
— The Night Lords Legion —
Konrad Curze jolted awake, drenched in cold sweat.
His cursed gift—foresight—had once again dragged him into visions of mankind's destruction:
the galaxy burning,
the Imperium collapsing,
and his own death.
Among all Primarchs, Curze possessed the strongest prophetic ability—
and the most uncontrolled.
His visions came not with warning, but as violent intrusions,
and always of tragedy.
Since the day he first opened his eyes, the future had tormented him.
Every vision carved new scars into his mind.
Worse still was his childhood.
He had fallen upon Nostramo—
a world of endless night, choked by storm clouds and pollution.
Its sun existed in eternal eclipse;
its surface was rich in adamantium but barren of food.
Starvation was normal.
Light belonged only to the elite.
The common people saw brightness only from factory furnaces or flickering streetlamps.
Generations living in darkness had turned their skin pale as corpses,
and their eyes pitch black to adapt to the gloom.
Crime filled every shadow.
Kidnapping, extortion, murder—
all were part of daily survival.
Population was controlled mostly through violence… and suicide.
As a child, Curze had survived alone—
surrounded by hunger, hatred, and predators.
He had fed on corpses when forced to choose between death and madness.
He grew up like a bat clinging to life in a cavern of nightmares.
By adulthood, these memories had shaped him into a Primarch who despised sin with absolute conviction.
To him, the guilty deserved only one sentence:
Death.
Stealing, killing, corruption—
it made no difference.
Age, circumstance, upbringing—
none of these excused wrongdoing.
Crime warranted execution.
Always.
And unlike mortals bound by fear or weakness, Curze could enforce his vision.
Thus, under his brutal justice, Nostramo became peaceful—
at a terrible cost.
No one dared commit a crime.
No one dared even whisper dissent.
Through endless bloodshed, Konrad Curze achieved what no ruler ever had:
a city more orderly than even mythic Gotham—
a world where doors were never locked
and no one dared steal a single coin.
Now, sitting at the edge of his bed, chest heaving from the nightmare, Curze's gaze drifted toward a statue nearby.
A statue of the Emperor.
His eyes narrowed.
With a simple flick of his hand, the statue shattered into powder.
He hated the Emperor.
Deeply.
His foresight had shown him the truth:
In the Emperor's grand design, the Primarchs—
and their Legions—
were nothing more than disposable sacrifices.
He obeyed not out of loyalty,
but because the Imperium allowed him to enact his own ruthless version of justice.
A small sacrifice to save many—
that was acceptable to him.
But as he looked at the dust where the statue had been, a question surfaced:
Why had there been an Emperor statue in his chamber at all?
A mocking voice drifted through the room:
"You intend to accept such a fate?"
"To be used… discarded… killed?
Pitiful."
Curze did not bother to look around.
"If it achieves my goals," he said coldly, "I do not care."
The voice immediately retorted:
"But you are dissatisfied.
You submit only out of resignation.
No one who survived Nostramo's horrors would ever willingly march to their own execution."
.....
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