Chapter 89: Lightspeed Completion
"Soul Drinker Number One. The first creature to absorb souls, a fitting designation," Urien murmured, genuinely appreciating the creation before him.
As he studied the work, something shifted in his mind. His own designs had always remained constrained by traditional Eldar physiology. Who had decided that creations required two eyes? That they must possess bipedal locomotion?
Standing before this abomination, he realized the shackles of convention had blinded him to possibilities he'd never considered.
"As long as it achieves the desired effect, legs become superfluous," he said aloud, his voice carrying new wonder. "Elegant simplicity in achieving one's objectives, that is true mastery. Perhaps I should reconfigure my own body into something more..."
Watching the haemonculus slip into creative obsession, Francis experienced an unexpected moment of kinship with the deranged craftsman.
Once he released psychic control, Urien immediately lunged at his examination table with manic intensity, becoming utterly absorbed in his work. Francis ceased to exist for him.
Francis mentally directed ten Blood Reavers to walk outside, but the other captives fell into step behind them without being ordered.
"Hold on, I only requisitioned ten of you. If all of you leave, won't that compromise the entire operation?" Francis looked at them with genuine confusion.
"Please, take us with you! We're all willing to go for... treatment," the remaining Blood Reavers said, their eyes fixed on him with disturbing fervor.
Prisoners volunteering for capture. What has the galaxy come to?
"Fine. Control them all," Francis said with a resigned sigh.
The Soul Drinkers seized control of the eager volunteers. Dozens of Blood Reavers fell into disciplined formation behind Francis's strike force, an impressive procession moving through Commorragh's twisted corridors.
The surrounding Dark Eldar and raiders, normally vicious predators who would gut anyone for sport, parted respectfully upon seeing the Blood Reavers march in formation. The procession advanced without a single instance of interference.
Their growing reputation secured them a larger, superior-class raiding vessel for their departure, granted with unusual deference by the dock masters.
They left Commorragh as casually as tourists departing a museum after a pleasant afternoon.
Francis felt like he was dreaming. No firefight. No desperate ambush. No last-minute escape. He hadn't even drawn his bolt pistol. Mission complete.
Upon reaching the extraction coordinates, he pulled out the return device the Emperor had provided and activated it without ceremony.
Terra, The Imperial Palace
Throne Room
"So we cannot prosecute this war directly in the Immaterium. We must maintain our position here and wait until the Webway's completion?" Guilliman asked, already feeling the pressure of an impending headache.
From the Emperor's extended discourse, it had become clear that everything depended on completing the Webway. His father considered no other objective remotely comparable.
"To accelerate the construction schedule, our only viable option is waiting for Francis to acquire Blood Reavers from Commorragh itself," Guilliman continued. "But Father, he commands merely four thousand Astartes warriors. The conquest of an entire Dark Eldar city-realm, surely that's impossible by any reasonable measure."
"Commorragh isn't just dangerous," Sanguinius added, his concern deepening. "It's byzantine chaos given physical architecture. This isn't a simple raid. And Francis doesn't even possess reliable intelligence regarding its location within the Webway."
The Great Angel's doubt crystallized as he analyzed their strategic position. The plan's viability seemed increasingly questionable.
Just as they continued debating—
BOOM.
The floor trembled. Guilliman glanced back, perplexed. The vessel Francis had taken wasn't nearly massive enough to cause such vibrations upon landing. And the timing made no sense. Francis had departed less than a standard Terran day ago. How could he possibly have returned already?
The massive doors of the Throne Room swung open with their characteristic grinding resonance. Francis strode through, trailing dozens of Blood Reavers behind him like hunting trophies on display.
Guilliman and his brothers stared in collective bewilderment.
"You're back already? Brother, we haven't even concluded this briefing!" one exclaimed.
"How did you accomplish this so quickly?" another demanded.
Francis touched his nose with that casual gesture of his and answered with studied nonchalance, "It's quite simple. I infiltrated the Webway through an access point I'd mapped earlier, ambushed a Dark Eldar raiding party that was conveniently passing through, then employed some of my more advanced gene-manipulation protocols to subdue this particular group of Blood Reavers."
He paused for effect. "Don't believe me? Feel free to ask them yourselves."
Guilliman and the others exchanged glances.
The first part was entirely believable. Francis had always possessed an uncanny talent for finding trouble.
But that second part about gene-manipulation protocols had to be his characteristically dry sarcasm deflecting from whatever actually happened.
"I see," Guilliman said, his tone absolutely dry. "So if I understand your report correctly, brother, you coincidentally accessed the Webway, coincidentally intercepted a Dark Eldar raiding vessel that coincidentally carried numerous Blood Reavers aboard, and then simply brought them home without incident. Is that the official version?"
Hearing this sardonic summary, Francis genuinely wanted to punch his brother in his perfectly organized face.
Was his completely accurate explanation really that implausible? Did the truth sound so absurd that nobody would believe it?
Golden radiance flickered and pulsed across the Emperor's towering form upon the Golden Throne. One massive hand descended with surprising gentleness upon Francis's head. The gesture carried the unmistakable weight of paternal pride.
"You have done well, my son. Very well indeed." Emperor's voice echoed in the halls.
The other Primarchs watching couldn't quite hide the flash of envy that crossed their features.
"My dear Father, I've substantially exceeded the mission parameters," Francis began, seizing the moment with characteristic boldness, while rubbing his hands, "Can there be some form of physical reward for this success? You know, Father, I've only just assumed command of my Legion and face severe resource shortfalls. Perhaps a hundred Warlord-class Titans would suffice as a starting point?"
He raised his eyebrows hopefully, blinking his eyes at the Emperor, his expression the picture of innocent expectation from a child.
The Emperor's massive fist slowly clenched. Golden light intensified around it, as if divine patience were being tested.
The other Primarchs could only stare in collective disbelief at their brother's absolute audacity.
When the Blood Reavers regained full consciousness, the first thing they saw was the Golden Throne dominating the chamber in all its terrible majesty. They immediately prostrated themselves in expressions of rapturous devotion.
"By the Dark Muses themselves! Such an absolutely exquisite torture apparatus!" one breathed.
"Might I be permitted to experience it, even briefly? Death would be an entirely worthy price for such transcendent agony~" another whispered reverently.
"The suffering it could inflict would be sublime in its intensity~" a third added with disturbing enthusiasm.
...
The Warp
Within the Maw of Chaos
Within Chaos itself, where the Four Gods held dominion, reality became nothing more than jest and absurdity.
Light and shadow merged into colors that violated every natural law, hues that should not exist in any sane universe, time shattered like broken glass. Past, present, and future bled together without distinction, creating a temporal soup where causality held no meaning.
Horus's eyes snapped open and looked in a twisted void that defied description.
His back still spasmed from the blade Erebus had driven between his shoulders, that moment of ultimate betrayal. Searing pain consumed his entire nervous system like wildfire through dry parchment; every nerve ending screamed in protest.
'EREBUS. When we meet again, you piece of betraying little...I will end you with my bare hands.'
He crashed heavily onto a desolate plain shrouded in thick crimson mist that rolled across the ground like living blood.
"Where am I?" His voice emerged as a low growl from deep in his chest, still commanding, still powerful, yet somehow diminished in this alien dimension where the normal rules of reality held no sway.
Daemons erupted from every direction simultaneously. An endless tide of nightmare made manifest.
Some bore serrated fangs like industrial saws and razor-sharp talons that could slice through ceramite. Others suppurated, festering, spreading corruption with every touch. Still more writhed with masses of tentacles or flickered rapidly through shapes that defied comprehension and threatened sanity itself.
"Come on then! This won't be nearly enough to kill me!" Horus laughed, a wild, defiant sound echoing across the plain, and hurled himself bodily into combat without hesitation.
Each blow from his transhuman fists shattered daemonic essence, sending warp-creatures screaming back into the immaterium. Yet they seemed infinite. For every entity he destroyed, more clawed their way from the void, drawn by his defiance like moths to flame.
Time became meaningless in this place where past and future held no distinction.
"Is this everything you have?" Horus roared at the void itself.
He killed without pause. His fists rose and fell in mechanical rhythm.
Daemon corpses accumulated in growing numbers, first carpeting the ground beneath his boots, then forming a hill of broken bodies, finally a mountain of corpses and twisted flesh rising hundreds of feet into the impossible sky.
A monument to his refusal to yield.
Horus stood atop that grotesque monument, his armor completely drenched in blood and ichor, his body carved with deep wounds that stubbornly refused to heal. Raw Chaos energies eroded his muscle fiber and bone marrow with each passing moment, corruption seeping deeper with every breath.
His fists, his knees, even his teeth became weapons. His roars of rage shook the entire void, sound waves rippling through unreality and forcing even the attacking daemons to hesitate before pressing their assault.
Corruption began spreading visibly across his flesh like a disease. Strange runes manifested on his skin, burning themselves into existence, the marks of the Ruinous Powers claiming what they considered their due. Terrible strength surged through his limbs, vast and alien and wrong, but this power flooding his body was not his own. It was the Gods' poisoned gift, and accepting it meant damnation.
"Get OUT of me! I don't need your cursed power!" Horus screamed at the sky.
"You think THIS will break me? You think I'll submit to parasites hiding in shadows? NEVER!"
His voice carried across the void with such force that reality itself seemed to shudder.
"Continue the slaughter, Warmaster. Offer us more blood and bone. Feed us with your rage," whispered voices from everywhere and nowhere.
"Go straight to hell! Offer your own damned heads instead!" Horus snarled back, his contempt absolute.
Countless seductive figures materialized before him, their movements hypnotic and obscene, promising pleasures beyond mortal understanding if he would only surrender.
"Your pathetic temptations mean NOTHING to me!" Horus roared, tearing through the illusions with his bare hands, shredding false visions like paper.
Thick, toxic vapors rose from the ground, attempting to corrupt his soul directly, to drag him down into decay's eternal embrace, where he would rot forever.
"Take your rot back to the festering pits that spawned you!" He struggled desperately against the pull, maintaining his ground through nothing but sheer force of will.
Visions flickered across his consciousness, possible futures, alternate timelines, each showing him that only by embracing Chaos would he have any hope of salvation or victory.
"Destiny? Fate? I forge my OWN path through this galaxy!" He drove his fist down into the ground with earth-shattering force, physically shattering the prophetic visions like glass.
Still, the daemonic assault continued relentlessly. Wave after wave without end. Horus reached the absolute limits of even his transhuman physiology.
His movements began to slow despite his will. His breathing grew increasingly labored. The fire that had burned so fiercely in his eyes gradually dimmed as exhaustion claimed him.
His shattered armor exposed the corrupted flesh beneath, rotting, reeking of decay, covered in the marks of Chaos he'd tried so hard to resist.
Still, he refused submission. Still, he stood defiant. Still, Horus remained Unbend.
Standing atop his mountain of corpses, he drew upon the final reserves of his willpower to repel each new wave, refusing to fall even as his body betrayed him.
"You're nothing but cowardly parasites! Only capable of lurking in shadows and exploiting weakness!" His voice was hoarse now, nearly gone, but the words still carried weight.
"Face me directly if you dare! Fight me as warriors, not as scavengers! Even in death, I will NEVER submit to your corruption!"
The curses still carried force despite his exhaustion, still rang with the authority of a Primarch's will.
Just as his strength finally began to fail, as his knees started to buckle, a massive rift tore through reality itself above the mountain of corpses. The void screamed as it was violated, torn open by power beyond comprehension.
From within that terrible wound in space came the low laughter of the Four Gods themselves, mocking him, yet somehow anticipatory, as though this entire ordeal had been exactly what they wanted all along.
"I will never surrender to you. Do you hear me? NEVER!!" Horus's final words were defiant to the last.
"Chaos can burn in its own hell for all eternity!"
With one final roar of pure defiance, he swung his fist directly at the rift itself, striking at the Gods who tormented him.
The void opened wide and swallowed him whole, pulling him down into absolute darkness.
[End of Chapter]