Chapter 356: Khorne: I

As Carlos's two heads emitted sharp, guttural roars, the bizarre staff in his hand—named the Staff of Tomorrow—suddenly flung open the Book of Carlos's Fate, which recorded the strange visions he had drawn from the Eternal Well; blasphemous runes stretched forth like chains.

In an instant, those sharp runes lashed toward Guilliman, who was on the verge of defeating the two Chaos Daemons of Tzeentch.

Guilliman dodged with a leap, but his heart clenched tightly; his footsteps grew erratic, as if something hidden deep within his soul was trying to claw its way out.

Carlos slammed the Staff of Tomorrow hard against the ground; the seven Changer of the Ways shrieked in agony as the blasphemous energies composing their forms were violently siphoned into the spell Carlos had woven.

Nothing in the material realm could defeat a Primarch—unless it were another Primarch, or the Primarch himself.

Thus Carlos had never expected to defeat Guilliman in direct combat; he sought only to lure Guilliman into destroying himself.

Carlos poured all his cunning into weaving this blasphemous spell, designed to awaken the suppressed negative emotions hidden within Guilliman.

Robert Guilliman's body collapsed as if all strength had been drained; he knelt on one knee upon the ground.

Chain-like runes pierced his chest; shadowy demons twisted and danced upon his form; exhaustion, guilt, rage, sorrow, wailing, pain—all manner of negative emotions manifested as translucent, writhing tendrils extending from his body, layer upon layer coiling around him like a semi-real, crystalline prison that held him fast.

In mere moments, Carlos's spell was complete; his two heads erupted in wild laughter, looking down upon the writhing, agonized Robert Guilliman.

He could hardly wait to hear Robert Guilliman scream in torment.

This was the fated moment! The future had long been written in Carlos's Book of Fate, bound to the Staff of Tomorrow!

"Aaaah——————"

A heavy sigh escaped Robert Guilliman's lips.

Carlos's two heads blinked simultaneously; this was not at all how the prophecy had foretold.

Was this a cry of agony? It sounded more like the exhausted sigh of a beast after endless overtime.

The activated Guilliman did not appear tormented; his golden hair was streaked with white from overwork, his face lined with fatigue, skin wrinkled, eyes bloodshot, dark circles stark and prominent.

He looked less like a Primarch and more like some pitiful Neiwu Force bureaucrat who had worked nonstop for half his life.

"Why?"

Carlos touched the negative emotions clinging to Guilliman.

"Why have you clung to the Codex Astartes for ten thousand years?"

"Why must I work overtime? Why are all the administrative duties mine alone?"

"Why does this efficiency pill only increase productivity but not remove fatigue?"

"Why are there so many documents every day? Why can Sanguinius fight on the front lines?"

"Why wake me up? Was waking me up just so I could work overtime?"

"Why did you tear up my Imperial Codex?"

"Sanguinius and Zhou Yun—you two came to Ultramar just so I'd be stuck doing all the work alone, right?"

Under the influence of Carlos's spell, the intense negative emotions and resentment nearly solidified, writhing and lashing across Guilliman's form.

Unintentionally, Carlos brushed against one of them; instantly, a fragment of Guilliman's memory flashed before his eyes.

"Can I tell a joke?" Zhou Yun suddenly smiled and spoke to Guilliman inside the command chamber on Macragge.

Exhausted, Guilliman looked up, as if knowing he could not stop Zhou Yun, and weakly protested: "Better not be about me."

"Fine. The Siege of Terra," Zhou Yun nodded.

Guilliman instantly grasped the joke's punchline; his expression froze.

But Zhou Yun still eagerly explained to Guilliman:

"The joke's funny because it has nothing to do with you."

In this memory, intense negative emotions surged forth.

Carlos was utterly bewildered.

This… this isn't right.

Where were the promised hatred and fury toward the Empire's state, the guilt and self-reproach over his failures, the dread and despair of a dark future—the darker, more dangerous, more sinister emotions?

Those emotions weren't absent—just extremely rare. Most of what he saw were trivial, harmless grievances, like the one he'd just witnessed.

These emotions were utterly insufficient to shatter Guilliman's mental defenses, built of reason and discipline; at best, they could only suppress his rationality—

Huh?!

Carlos's two heads froze in place.

One head saw the past: Guilliman kneeling on the ground.

The other head saw the future: Guilliman standing atop one of Carlos's heads, the Sword of the Emperor pressed against the other.

Carlos tilted his head, confused.

A furious roar erupted.

Robert Guilliman surged to his feet; his eyes no longer held their usual reason or solemnity—all rationality had been suppressed by the negative emotions Carlos had summoned.

And among those summoned emotions were Guilliman's revulsion toward bureaucracy, his longing for the battlefield, his hatred of overtime—all of it coalescing into a need to unleash rage.

In this moment, Guilliman's mind held no reason—only rage. Rage, and more rage. "CARLOS!!!"

A bestial roar shattered the battlefield; Robert Guilliman's flesh seemed to burn, no longer resembling a human of the material universe, but a storm of blue and gold.

"I am Robert Guilliman! I am the Son of Vengeance! I am the Son of War! I am Lord of Ultramar!"

"I once permitted all things to join my order, to become my subjects, eternally bathed in the fiery dawn of reason and light—this was how it should have been!!"

"But you—you rejected this order, resisted this future, endangered my people—so all I leave you is fire, war, and vengeance!"

"Face me! Dog of the Changer of Ways! Dog of Chaos!!!"

Carlos, terrified, turned and fled without hesitation.

But Guilliman's roar was so deafening it made Carlos's body, forged from the might of the Empyrean, tremble and weaken.

The furious roar even stirred ripples within the Warp.

Seated upon the Brass Throne, Khorne was attempting to spread the fires of war toward Terra, while resisting the cold sun suspended above the Warp.

!

Yet at the sound of that roar, Khorne could not help but be drawn to the fury, involuntarily casting a fleeting glance.

Though only for an instant, the flames of battle on the field seemed to burn brighter.

Carlos had no idea what had just happened.

He only saw the blue-and-gold storm of roaring fury hurtling toward him.

Then his past-seeing head was crushed beneath the massive boot of the Armor of Fate, and his future-seeing head was choked by the Fist of Dominion, the burning Sword of the Emperor pressed against it.

"My Lord!!" Carlos's two heads screamed in unison: "Save me!!"

"Roar!!!"

Magnus let out a low growl as he tumbled down the side of the Great Pyramid of Tzeentch, his armor shattered and broken.

Sanguinius pursued like a blazing sunfire, his white wings trembling slightly, each flutter generating propulsion that propelled him at an unimaginable speed.

Magnus swiftly swung his silver blade, slashing across the pyramid's outer walls.

The walls of silver and gold rippled like water, their material structure crumbling as they exchanged with potent psychic energy from the Empyrean, forming waves of purple-red energy that lashed toward Sanguinius.

But Sanguinius merely focused his mind; in an instant, his figure flickered, and he appeared before Magnus in a blink.

Magnus was stunned—he had sensed no disturbance in the Warp during Sanguinius's teleportation.

The Superpower Training Box: an item that teaches the user three superpowers—telekinesis, teleportation, and x-ray vision.

Zhou Yun had previously exchanged for this item, but normal humans required three hours daily for three full years to fully master the powers.

Thus Guilliman, Zhou Yun himself, and Zhou Yun's Doraemon Squad still used the Superpower Hat, which activated all three powers upon donning.

Sanguinius, however, using his superhuman intellect, had spent this time to barely master teleportation.

The intense energy field accumulated on the Spear of Completion exploded; golden light erupted into a razor-thin laser, lancing toward Magnus.

At such close range, even Magnus, a Daemon Primarch, could not fully evade—

SSSHHH!!

The light, infused with Sanguinius's potent psychic energy and the ancient technological power of the Spear of Completion, pierced straight through Magnus's right arm, severing half his wing along with it.

Sanguinius twisted his body mid-air and kicked Magnus squarely in the chest.

Magnus cried out in pain, his body crashing hard into the pyramid's wall.

Sanguinius stood on the slanted wall, pinning Magnus beneath his foot, raising the Spear of Completion high.

Magnus gasped, staring in terror.

"Die!" Sanguinius whispered.

Yet at that moment, both Magnus and Sanguinius heard the sound.

A sharp, piercing birdcall echoed through the void.

(End of Chapter)