Chapter 261

Chaos is roaring; rifts filled with curses, desecration, and filth are devouring the galaxy.

The Great Devourer marches forward, shattering the Gate of Cadia with his hammer of black stone, dragging his desecrating claws into the heart of the Imperium.

Weep blood, weep blood, weep blood, weep blood.

The entire galaxy is weeping.

Before the eyes of Digg Lisi, Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, these visions and illusions filled his sight.

He felt an unspeakable disaster drawing near, yet never imagined it would be so terrible.

Now he saw clearly: the Warlord of Chaos, Abaddon, had torn open the Gate of Cadia—his ten-thousand-year desecration campaign had succeeded.

The power of Chaos raged across every corner of the galaxy; Oltremar was no exception.

The Warlord of Chaos did not come himself, but his claws emerged along that crimson path, piercing into the Macragge system.

Digg Lisi hoped his powerful prophetic ability would guide the Ultramarines.

His eyes widened; strange psychic light erupted, and the Emperor's Tarot on his table floated upward, blazing fiercely in the psychic flame surging from within him.

Mortal seers, fortune-tellers, and mystics usually sought guidance from the Emperor's Tarot.

But they did not understand.

The Tarot itself was unimportant—and had always been so.

What mattered was only His consciousness.

The Tarot burned; all seventy-eight cards unfolded countless variations.

From sacrifice to the God-Emperor, from Inquisitors to assassins, from Space Marines to the Eyes of Horus.

The seventy-eight faces rippled in the fire.

Digg Lisi heard the voice.

The cries of billions echoed in Digg Lisi 's ears; the King of Ages cast his gaze upon him.

We are one.

Billions of voices cried as one.

Yes, we are one, Digg Lisi nodded in agreement.

The Emperor is humanity; humanity is the Emperor.

A vast, immense will crushed into Digg Lisi 's mind.

Digg Lisi 's soul burned.

Yet he was startled.

This time, the pain was far less.

And the vast will—the King of Ages—seemed diminished, his shadowed deathly aura much weaker.

"My Lord!" Digg Lisi did not know if this was good or bad; he could only ask the consciousness.

But the will did not answer Digg Lisi 's question; it only displayed visions.

A chorus of agonized screams filled Digg Lisi 's ears—the roar of the Warlord of Chaos, Abaddon.

Abaddon sat slumped upon the throne of the Revenant, tubes inserted into his body, apothecaries and sorcerers surrounding him, attempting to heal his flesh with desecrated energies.

But they could not: a gruesome wound slashed across Abaddon's chest; his face had been split clean in two.

Digg Lisi was stunned—had the Great Devourer, Abaddon, been gravely wounded?!

And then, a series of symbolic, eerie visions appeared before Digg Lisi 's eyes.

Blood, fresh blood, flowed across the galaxy.

A berserker, bare-armed, sprinted through the blood; his axe hacked at bloodletters, his chain-saw of mica dragon-teeth severed the warp-bodies of demons.

Countless demons—even Greater Daemons—lay dead at the berserker's feet.

Kain! Kain! Kain!

Roars echoed through the blood; the face of the Blood God emerged, staring fixedly at the bare-armed berserker.

Why defy? Why defy? Why defy?

"For a head."

The bare-armed berserker replied, gripping his axe tightly, yet his voice held no anger.

Only calm. A terrifying calm.

"For vengeance."

The blood pool churned; the Blood God rose, his blood-drenched head gazing down from the heavens at the berserker.

"The gods have other plans for him!" the Blood God roared, his fury shaking Digg Lisi 's eardrums.

A face carved with inscriptions surfaced from the blood pool.

Yet the berserker hesitated not—he swung his axe straight into the blood pool, cleaving the skull within.

The pool churned and rippled.

"This head is not yours to claim."

The berserker growled:

"He belongs to me!"

"He has owed me his head for ten thousand years!"

"Either the gods kill me—or let me kill him!"

The berserker slowly raised his axe, aiming it at the towering Blood God.

"Cut off my head—I offer you my own skull!"

"Or let me pass—let me cut off his head!"

The blood pool rippled faintly, yet the Blood God did not rage at the berserker for raising his weapon.

"Good! Go kill! Kain!"

A cry of delight rang out; the Blood God's sharp finger pointed at the berserker's body:

"Go kill! I grant you leave to kill!"

"As you say! Even the gods have no right to stop Khorne's chosen from taking a head—even Khorne himself!"

Hearing the Blood God's roar, the berserker knelt on one knee and placed his chain-axe upon the blood pool, before the Blood God.

"But if you sever Erebus's head, you owe me a skull."

The Blood God declared:

"You shall repay this debt with a skull of greater worth!"

The blood pool churned; faces surfaced within it.

Lion El'Jonson, Roboute Guilliman, Leman Russ, Magnus, Fulgrim, Angron, Lorgar.

Faces of the Primarchs surfaced in the blood pool.

"Sever the head of a Primarch—or die in combat with them."

The Blood God's voice echoed slowly; He gazed at the bare-armed berserker:

"Do you accept, Kain?"

Severing a Primarch's head was nearly impossible.

In truth, the Blood God was merely sentencing Kain to death in battle against the Primarchs.

"I accept."

As the berserker spoke, Digg Lisi 's ears were filled instantly with the Blood God's joyous laughter.

The Blood God extended his finger.

A wail, a ruin, a fury screamed.

A broken, twisted, nearly dead daemon struggled from the Blood God's fingertip.

The daemon was so shattered that the warp-energy forming his body expressed only one emotion:

Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!

Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!

"Not just you!"

The daemon let out a furious roar and lunged into Kain's body:

"That liar owes me too!!!"

"Give me your body! Just like Angron did!"

Kain offered no resistance.

The daemon fused with Kain; his flesh writhed and shifted.

Then the blood pool surged—and the berserker became a streak of blood slicing through the stars, pointing toward the Revenant.

Digg Lisi felt bewildered.

Khorne's Chosen, Kain, was heading toward the Revenant to sever Erebus's head??

Why had this happened?

Digg Lisi felt the fate of the galaxy twisting slowly.

At that moment, the visions before Digg Lisi changed again.

The galaxy twisted and flowed; the icy wind of the Blue Moon howled.

A blue, hazy, round figure stood upon it.

The Omnissiah's voice thundered; a deathly silence surrounded it, as if the hunger of a swarm screamed.

A red-robed Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus crouched low, kneeling at His feet.

The Sage of Great Wisdom dragged a cargo crate behind him, its interior glowing with a light that seemed to symbolize hope.

A blizzard surged, scouring Digris's face.

A mummified corpse sat across from Digris, its eyes streaming violet tears.

"My Lord!" Digris whispered in agony.

In that instant of facing the Lord of Mankind, a torrent of psychic energy surged through Digris's will.

But when he had established a link with the Emperor's will through the Emperor's Tarot, he had already prepared himself.

"Fate."

"The fate of the galaxy has been turned."

"All hope lies there."

"Digris, son of Guilliman, you shall witness—"

The corpse's voice grew distant and faint.

"Save us."

"My Lord!!!"

Digris raised his voice, but immediately felt an unbearable, searing pain.

Then Digris awoke in the Hera Fortress on Macragge.

Outside the fortress, Chaos roared.

The Macragge system, the shrine world of Raphael,

The withered gales of the Atheron Mountains swept across the blue-powered armor of the Hydras, creaking and groaning.

The Night Lords' jump packs howled, the wind deafening.

The Thousand Sons sorcerers raised their staves, searching for traces of the Celestial Current.

The aether writhed in the void, as if something were coalescing.

Suddenly, the material universe roared—a rift tore open in the void, and all matter nearby was dragged toward it; pebbles on the ground clattered against the armor of the Black Legion warriors.

The Black Legion invaders, having sensed the aetheric currents in these mountains, received word from Alpha's spies: the Thousand Sons' prophecies and divinations had arrived here.

They watched as light exploded in midair, and a shimmering, towering Webway gate appeared.

The Black Legion immediately braced for battle—but the outcome defied all expectations.

The Webway gate remained silent; no one emerged.

The whine of a power arm shattered the air—the lead Thousand Sons sorcerer had no time to react before his head exploded.

Then the Alpha Marines in blue armor heard the roar of chainsaws, their bodies sliced cleanly in two.

The Night Lords' raptors in the sky heard the whir of rotors, but when they turned to look, they saw nothing—only the roar of an energy field surging toward them.

In an instant, the Black Legion descended into chaos.

They could faintly hear sounds, yet when they looked, they saw nothing.

As if the enemy lurked perpetually in their blind spots.

Moments later, Cilandri the Veil-Walker flicked her wrist, severing the last Alpha's head with a monomolecular thread, then plucked the tiny star from her chest.

She watched as the Blood Angels around her also removed the stars from their chests, appearing on the battlefield as if stepping out of their own blind spots.

"This thing is far more useful than Sigil's blessing," Cilandri the Veil-Walker muttered under her breath.

(End of Chapter)