Chapter 360

"Master Ahriman, what is the situation now? Where did the Primarch go?"

The newly resurrected Thousand Sons warriors, like the others, were full of questions.

And Ahriman, faced with these questions, chose to play the ostrich, acting as if he couldn't hear.

He gritted his teeth, analyzing the situation before him.

Ahriman still had four sufficiently powerful Chaos artifacts left; this psychic barrier could still hold for a little while.

But he himself was reaching his limit; at most, if Zhou Yun led him around like a dog two or three more times, he wouldn't be able to hold on.

Too beastly! Too beastly! Simply Erebus!

Ahriman had traversed the galaxy for ten thousand years and had never encountered such a beastly opponent.

This couldn't even be called a battle!!

Ahriman remembered what Ma Genusi had said to him before the war: "That existence is now restrained within a mortal shell, so fragile that a single witch-fire could take its life."

Regarding this, Ahriman only wanted to greet Ma Genusi's entire family.

Zhou Yun's body was indeed fragile, but Ahriman didn't even have a chance to get close to him; Zhou Yun clearly had never considered fighting a real battle with Ahriman.

Throughout the entire war, the two were just repeating the cycle of Zhou Yun resurrecting Rubricae, throwing the Fatty Greater Daemon into the Warp, and Ahriman going to rescue them and getting shot.

And the only reason Ahriman had persisted until now was to wait for either Kairos or Ma Genusi to achieve the victory they had promised.

Now Kairos had already been defeated, and there was still no news from Ma Genusi's side.

Even if Ma Genusi eventually killed Sanguinius, he probably wouldn't have arrived in time before Ahriman was killed by the combined forces of Zhou Yun and Guilliman.

Ahriman gritted his teeth.

If it were just to defeat Zhou Yun, Ahriman had one last choice.

Step into that position, occupy a place for himself in the Warp, let himself become a thorough Warp existence, and ascend to a higher form.

Ahriman had always had this opportunity.

Perturabo offered Chaos hundreds of Imperial Fists' gene-seeds and was ascended to a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided.

And what Ahriman offered to Chaos was his entire Legion.

He was the master of the Rubric network, the arcane focus for all Thousand Sons' psychic power.

He had killed almost his entire Legion, offering almost all his brothers to the Warp.

So many sacrifices, so many deaths, were enough for Ahriman to obtain the profound blessings of the Warp.

Those souls restrained in armor, that fate of being dust—everything gave Ahriman the chance to become a higher-level existence.

He spent ten thousand years looking for that opportunity for ascension, viewing ascension to a higher-level existence as the way to save his brothers, and finally discovered the method of ascension in the Aeldari library.

But Ahriman despairingly discovered that if he ascended to become one of those competitors for positions in Chaos, becoming an existence similar to Ynnead, Vashtorr, and Zhou Yun, then his brothers would be completely beyond saving.

Once he began to ascend, the characteristic of Chaos having no time would begin to take effect.

And the foundation of his ascension was the Rubric, the destruction of the Thousand Sons Legion itself; after the ascension was completed, this fate would be fixed.

From the past to the future, the destruction of the Thousand Sons would become an indisputable fact at every point in time, just like the birth of Slaanesh brought the inevitable doom of the Aeldari; the curse of being dust would hunt down everyone flowing with Thousand Sons blood across the past and future.

Ahriman now dared not borrow any more power from the Warp; he could already faintly feel the existence of that position.

"Ahriman."

Zhou Yun's voice sounded at this moment; he revealed a gentle smile and called out to Ahriman in an earnest and approachable voice:

"You seem to be unable to hold on much longer; I can let you leave."

Ahriman was slightly stunned when he heard this.

"You actually have no conflict of interest with Ma Genusi or Tzeentch."

Zhou Yun continued to smile and said:

"I know you don't trust the promises of the Gods, so I won't make any promises; I'll just use practical benefits to move you."

"I will help you resurrect a few Rubricae, and all I want is for you to leave now."

A glimmer of light suddenly burst before Ahriman's eyes; what Zhou Yun said was like a spider thread lowered from hell, allowing Ahriman to see a glimmer of hope.

He guessed that something had gone wrong on Sanguinius's side, and Zhou Yun needed to rescue Sanguinius as soon as possible, so he didn't want to waste any more time here.

"Resurrect two hundred of my brothers, and I will withdraw," Ahriman shouted at Zhou Yun.

"Ten; we are on the battlefield now, where would I have the time to resurrect them for you one by one?" Zhou Yun immediately rejected Ahriman's proposal.

"Then you will just watch Sanguinius die?" Ahriman felt he had grasped Zhou Yun's vital point.

But Zhou Yun just gave Ahriman a strange look, as if asking what nonsense Ahriman was talking about.

"It's not like Sanguinius hasn't died before."

Zhou Yun said in a flat tone:

"Since I can resurrect him once, I can naturally resurrect him a second time."

"Do you think resurrecting the dead is a difficult thing for me?"

Saying this, Zhou Yun casually resurrected another Rubric warrior.

But this time he didn't throw it into the Warp's torrent, but directly controlled the Fatty Greater Daemon to throw it into Ahriman's barrier.

"This is the first one," Zhou Yun said to Ahriman.

"... But ten is too few!" Ahriman swallowed slightly, suppressing the excitement in his heart and shouting.

"It's not like I was the one who burned your brothers to ashes!" While saying this, Zhou Yun resurrected another Rubric warrior and threw it toward Ahriman.

Ahriman quickly used his psychic power to catch it and placed it beside him. "Resurrecting a few more won't take you much time!"

"Alright then, just for good luck, I'll resurrect twenty-two of your brothers; twenty-two is my sacred number."

Zhou Yun grinned, knowing Ahriman had taken the bait:

"But I want the copy of the *Book of Ma Genusi* in your hand."

Upon hearing this, Ahriman took off the precious copy of the *Book of Ma Genusi* from his waist almost without hesitation.

Although he might have guessed that Zhou Yun's original goal included this copy of the *Book of Ma Genusi*, being able to trade it for twelve more brothers was, in Ahriman's view, completely worth it.

Ahriman threw the copy of the *Book of Ma Genusi* to Zhou Yun, and Zhou Yun also resurrected the remaining twenty Rubric warriors and threw them to Ahriman one by one.

Finally, Ahriman nodded slightly to Zhou Yun; he seemed a bit satisfied, and then he led the Prodigal Sons warband and disappeared into the tides of the Warp.

Zhou Yun glanced at the tracking mirror in his hand that had already captured Ahriman's image, and then quickly began to act according to the plan.

He stuffed Ahriman's copy of the *Book of Ma Genusi* directly into his fourth-dimensional pocket, then took out the copy he had obtained in the Black Library, as well as

a pair of orange-yellow interwoven shoes.

(End of this chapter)