Chapter 657: From Beginning to End, That Weapon Was Myself

Lyne El Jansen moved like a beast through the forest, swiftly weaving through the steel jungle.

The shell of Long Linxing was Caliban itself, only the dense woods had become a steel jungle, the mountains had turned into flesh factories, and the streams had been replaced by energy conduits—but the terrain itself remained unchanged.

On Long Linxing, Lyne was like a fish returning to the icy stream that had birthed him; every rise, every rock, every pebble in the stream was etched into his memory.

He toyed with Peturabo in battle, forcing Peturabo to refrain from using the massive mask’s long-range firepower for fear of damaging the half-finished female robot on Lyne’s shield, leaving Peturabo to drag his enormous frame behind Lyne.

But Peturabo, being massive and not built for speed or reflexes, could not keep up with Lyne—or match his reactions; even when he found an opening, Lyne raised his shield in time, placing the half-finished female robot between himself and Peturabo’s strike.

This back-and-forth wore Peturabo’s patience thinner and thinner.

That was precisely what Lyne sought.

The First Primarch moved at once, stepping into the gloomy woods and vanishing into the steel jungle.

Then, in the blink of an eye, he appeared at Peturabo’s side, swinging his shield directly into Peturabo’s body.

Peturabo cursed under his breath.

His body was too hard, too durable—if the half-finished mechanical frame of “Sister” struck it, it would shatter instantly.

Without hesitation, Peturabo linked his will to Long Linxing, attempting to use its power to tear through time and space for a teleportation.

But.

The instant Peturabo connected his will to Long Linxing, he sensed something was wrong.

Inside Long Linxing, chaos reigned like boiling soup.

The Ouroboros—or rather, Caliban itself—was disintegrating from within.

The Plague Heart had ignited itself, spewing terrifying energy in all directions.

The Tuchulcha Engine glowed brilliantly, like a star on the verge of explosion.

The Three Sacred Artifacts of the Old Ones were all overloaded, on the brink of rupture.

Peturabo’s attempt to draw power from Long Linxing failed immediately.

Inside Long Linxing, the wills of the Three Sacred Artifacts of the Old Ones faintly connected to him—but all they transmitted was a single phrase left by Vashthor:

“My friend, I owe you much.”

“One day, I shall repay you.”

“This is not a contract. It is only a promise I may never fulfill.”

Vashthor.

Peturabo’s extraordinary mind quickly grasped what Vashthor intended.

He abandoned Long Linxing, abandoned the Domain of Malice, abandoned Peturabo himself—and most of the power within his own shell had been used to accelerate Long Linxing’s operation.

Vashthor had discarded nearly everything, entering the Old Ones’ Vault—his own prison—carrying only his shell, even breaking Long Linxing, the key, to keep Zhou Yun from entering.

In this weakened state, even if he ascended to godhood, he would be imprisoned there for eons.

“Damn it!”

Peturabo cursed, though he could not explain why he felt so furious.

But now he had no time to ponder it—Lyne was charging with his shield.

Peturabo spat a curse as the layers of armor protecting his body began to unravel and split apart, like a flower of steel blooming beneath the descent of Lyne’s shield.

Finally, Peturabo’s body lay exposed to the hot air, before Lyne’s shield, before the half-finished female robot.

The robot’s arm, affected by gravity, hung limply downward, toward Peturabo’s body.

Peturabo lifted his head, pierced through by steel cables, and raised his dark, perpetually sullen eyes to the robot’s face.

That face—it was Peturabo’s own meticulous creation, identical to the real Caliphen.

Those hands—one mechanical, one covered in synthetic skin—gently cradled Peturabo’s face.

Peturabo’s hand, outstretched to seize his “sister” from Lyne’s shield, froze mid-motion.

Those eyes—the beautiful black eyes—suddenly gleamed with life.

“Ape.”

“You’re the world’s smartest fool.”

“Have you learned how to love someone yet?”

Caliphen’s lips parted slightly, whispering to Peturabo.

Peturabo felt the world spin—he was again that boy who knew everything, that child born with wisdom, that natural genius everyone called brilliant, everyone sought to exploit.

Only one person, a woman, a frail girl who understood nothing, would gently stroke his cheek and say: “Ape, you big fool.”

Only she, only she, called him a fool.

At that moment, the shield moved away, and the half-finished robot’s eyes lost their light—as if everything that had just happened had been nothing but Peturabo’s hallucination.

The sword of Loyalty thrust forth from behind the shield, sharp and unstoppable, piercing straight into Peturabo’s brow, driving through his brain.

The Lord of Iron opened his mouth slightly, uttering a few fragmented words before his body collapsed, his form composed of warp energy slowly dissolving into the air, vanishing.

The massive metal armor he had conjured from warp energy also shattered, collapsing into a mound of piled steel.

Lyne drew his blade. He too had sensed something strange—why had Peturabo not used Long Linxing’s power to teleport at the last moment?

But Lyne’s confusion vanished quickly; over the comms, Fulgrim’s voice spoke: Long Linxing had opened the door to the Old Ones’ Vault and was about to disintegrate—they had already evacuated through the gate.

Lyne’s expression shifted. Though he still did not fully understand what had happened, he needed to leave quickly.

The Lord of the Dark Angels took half a step—and the forest appeared beneath his feet; Lyne was about to vanish into the woods—

But at the final moment, Lyne halted.

The Lion looked up in shock, gazing in all directions at Long Linxing.

Long Linxing now trembled violently; the ground cracked open, strange light erupted forth, and the spacetime around Long Linxing twisted and fractured from the collapse of the Three Sacred Artifacts of the Old Ones.

Scenes from different moments of Long Linxing—or Caliban—began to appear simultaneously across the planet.

The Lion saw his own cradle crash to the ground, saw himself alone in the woods, saw his first meeting with Lu Se, saw… saw himself returning from Terra and slaughtering his own sons in rage, saw the ground torn apart by the artillery fire from his ship.

Lyne saw the moment Caliban was destroyed.

But—but Lyne also saw things that should not have existed in that time.

He saw ships bearing the Dark Angels’ insignia, yet unlike those of the Great Crusade era—their paint was not the deep black of old, but a lush green like the forest—and their identification codes had never existed in the Legion’s database.

They were ships of the Dark Angels Chapter of the 41st Millennium, and some Black Claw fighters.

How?

How could those ships appear on Caliban?

Even if spacetime was fractured, by the time the Dark Angels Chapter was founded, Caliban had long since shattered.

Lyne’s eyes narrowed sharply.

Back then, when Caliban was destroyed, the Dark Angels forces on Caliban were not only him and Lu Se.

There were also Dark Angels Chapters from the future.

Lyne suddenly remembered Lu Se’s constant claim that he had not destroyed Caliban—and Lyne himself was certain the munitions he had dropped on Caliban were insufficient to tear it apart.

If Lu Se was not lying, then… then…

The Lion drew a sharp breath.

He wanted to see more, to understand exactly what had happened.

But Long Linxing was already breaking apart; more blinding warp light flooded the surroundings.

The Lion knew—if he did not leave now, he would be too late.