Chapter 347: Can You Be Wiser Than the Primarchs and the Gods?

Gabriel Seth, Commander of the Flesh Tearers, a sub-chapter of the Angels of Saint Blood, gazed at this hazy world woven from pure light.

Those rays, emitting not a trace of heat, wove together to form this cylindrical realm.

Beyond the linen-colored wall of light, Seth felt as if he saw the blasphemous entities of the Warp staring at them with malice.

This made Seth slightly uneasy—the Webway, a realm belonging neither to the material universe nor fully to the Warp, stirred in him a faint unease.

"The Webway near Macragge is too narrow. During the War in Heaven, this region was a dead zone, filled only with the cold constructs built by the Necrons to shield against the Warp, so the Old Ones constructed only narrow, simple Webway paths here."

A slender, tall warrior clad in crimson armor stood beside Seth, whispering to him.

He was the Eldar Death God's Crimson Warrior, Thousand Faces, one of the leaders of the Death God's Host alongside Yvraine, and he accompanied Seth on this mission.

Seth, the Eldar, desperately wished he wore a helmet instead of the iron circlet, so he could hide his twitching face and the involuntary lengthening of his fangs.

He had been reassigned not long ago, transported by Zhou Yun via the Gate of Anywhere along with two companies of the Flesh Tearers to Macragge.

But since arriving at Macragge, Seth felt his soul, spirit, and body all shaken.

What the hell is wrong with this galaxy? Eldar now think they're sub-humans? Have their brains been parasitized by Ork spores?

Or did Seth himself get dragged into some parallel world when passing through the Gate? Is this galaxy even the same one?

What troubled Seth even more was that Sanguinius supported the claim that Eldar were sub-humans.

As a high-ranking officer in the reorganized Blood Angels, Seth had learned from Dante that Sanguinius maintained a certain friendship with the Silent King of the Necrons.

Seth felt his father had grown too fond of aliens—he feared one day an Ork Warboss might declare he was friends with the Archangel, or that Orks were sub-humans too.

Gabriel Seth couldn't help grinding his elongated fangs against his lips; had the Black Rage not been suppressed since the Archangel's return, he feared he'd be driven mad by these absurdities.

"Some regions deep within the Webway are vast enough to hold an entire planet or even a whole star system," Thousand Faces continued, speaking to himself.

"Oh."

Gabriel Seth gave a slight nod, his right hand tightening around the holy chain-sword, Bloodthirster.

Damn you, sprout—don't just come up and chat like that. If you weren't a sub-human now, I'd have chain-sawed you already.

Seth thought bitterly.

Though he didn't understand xenobiology, if Sanguinius said he was a sub-human, then he was a sub-human—and sub-humans couldn't be cut down.

"The Death God's orders are strange. Why deploy like this?" Thousand Faces surveyed the surroundings.

Hearing this, Seth lifted his head slightly, his eyes now filled with agreement.

Indeed, it was strange. Seth knew the mission's objective:

Guard the Webway to ensure Sanguinius, Guilliman, and Zhou Yun's safe passage to Terra.

They guarded the first relay point, where Zhou Yun and the others would enter via Gate of Anywhere from the material universe, then use the Webway to teleport multiple times to Terra.

What puzzled Seth was that Zhou Yun's orders required them to split into seven squads, each guarding one of seven Webway positions.

If the enemy weren't the Thousand Sons, Seth might have thought this decoy strategy had some merit.

But against the Thousand Sons' powerful precognition, against the prophetic abilities of Alpharius and the Daemon Primarch Magnus, such a decoy would be useless—it would only scatter Imperial strength pointlessly.

Seth couldn't understand it. He spoke bluntly, raising his confusion directly to Sanguinius and Zhou Yun.

But both Zhou Yun and Sanguinius simply declared it was the perfect plan.

When Seth asked why, they only shrugged, saying they didn't know,

and added something about too many possibilities, that even Guilliman would feel sorry trying them one by one.

"The Primordial Force must have his reasons!"

A sound of grinding steel arose as the Arch-Sage Belisarius Dora Kaul stepped between them, speaking in a low mechanical voice.

Gabriel Seth couldn't help glancing at the colossal metal beast beside him; honestly, just remembering that Belisarius Dora Kaul was once human made the idea of Eldar being sub-humans seem almost reasonable.

This Arch-Sage, for some achievements, had been granted the surname "Dora" by that Saint Dora-ama—Zhou Yun—and now his surname was Dora Kaul.

He was now one of the three commanders of Seth's squad—three commanders overseeing a force of two hundred twenty-two.

The same arrangement existed in the other six squads.

This abstract structure baffled Seth—he couldn't fathom why it was done this way, nor why Sanguinius and Zhou Yun refused to explain.

"Why are our actions so easily foreseen by the Thousand Sons? Because too many people know the plan—not everyone can resist their precognition."

Kaul, as if sensing Seth's thoughts, spoke in a low tone:

"If information is confined only to the two Primarchs and the Primordial Force, the chance of it being glimpsed by the Thousand Sons' precognition becomes minimal."

"It's good that you voiced an opinion to the Primarchs and the Primordial Force."

"But consider this: can you be wiser than the Primarchs and Dora-ama?"

Seth fell silent, suddenly overcome with shame.

!

Of course—he couldn't possibly be wiser than the Primarchs and Dora-ama.

At that moment, a door of pink-tinged red wood appeared in place.

"Why do they do this? What is their reason?"

In the Webway region known as the Hall of Illusions, Alpharius hovered beside nine stars dragged into the Webway, pondering.

Before him, seven crystals reflected the seven Imperial squads.

In each squad, a pink-tinged red wood door appeared.

But Alpharius easily discerned, through foresight and fate-reading, which door Zhou Yun, Sanguinius, and Guilliman would step through.

Yet Alpharius hesitated.

His original plan was to sacrifice nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine mutant sorcerers as offerings to Chaos, using the nine stars as a source to cast a massive teleportation spell, drawing everything near Macragge's Webway into the Hall of Illusions.

The Hall of Illusions was Alpharius's controlled Webway zone—its terrain was rugged and complex, teeming with dangerous entities accumulated over millions of years, and mysterious runes carved by his Sons of the Rogue Warband had corroded the Webway's veil into extreme fragility.

Alpharius intended to lure the two Primarchs and the Death God into this prepared killing ground, trap and slay them there, even shatter the Webway veil and hurl them into the domain of the Changer of Ways via Warp storms.

But Alpharius was confused.

Why would the two Primarchs and the Death God do something so pointless? Did they truly believe splitting into seven squads and seven doors would hide their true target from him?

But… but they are the Primarchs and the Gods.

The perfect Primarch, Sanguinius,

That mysterious dual Death God of humanity and Eldar, who now holds dominion over three realms of the Warp,

And Roboute Guilliman—Alpharius had lived through the Great Crusade; he knew how ambitious and cunning Roboute Guilliman was.

How could they devise such a clumsy plan?

No! It's a trick! There's definitely a trick!

"Master, could it be… they're just being stupid?" asked Astrolos, one of the Sons of the Rogue Warband, one of Alpharius's disciples and one of the nine sorcerers aiding the teleportation ritual.

"Silence! They are the Primarchs and the Gods!"

Alpharius whispered sharply:

"Do you think you're wiser than the Primarchs and the Gods?"

"We must change our plan immediately!"

(End of Chapter)