My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 373: Try Once
Magnus awoke in a wave of parched weakness. As consciousness returned, he felt an inexplicable throbbing—his connection to the Thousand Sons. It was as though he could hear the wails of his sons at the brink of death, their souls being possessed by tutelaries.
The primarch struggled to sit up. Immediately afterward, he became aware of the ever-present, anxious sound of footsteps. Magnus coughed dryly, trying to say something, but he was stopped.
"Be quiet, Magnus."
The voice sounded close. Magnus realized the warden was right beside him—Hades was inside the cell.
The usual lighthearted, indifferent tone was gone from his speech, replaced by words utterly devoid of emotion. It reminded Magnus of the unadorned voice of a machine savant.
"I was wrong before, Magnus. You yourself are already a mark of Him. Unless I destroy your soul, I have no way to erase His surveillance over this place."
Magnus heard the hiss of a blade scraping across the ground. His muscles tensed. He wanted to do something, but felt there was nothing left he could do. He had been toyed with by Chaos; his Thousand Sons and Prospero were both gone.
"That means He heard my previous conversation with you—and He wants to put an end to this. He did not hesitate to make use of your words. Is this a warning, or a joke?"
The words were spoken very softly, more like Hades talking to himself.
"Even worse, I believe the Emperor agrees with the other side. He saw something on Prospero—something that may have changed his mind. I should be going to more important occasions, rather than guarding a discarded piece."
The anxious footsteps sounded again. When Tzeentch blocks your path, you can never be sure about whether He wants you to stop doing something—or wants you to continue doing it.
After a long while, the footsteps stopped. Hades seemed to crouch down beside Magnus, who was half-sitting, leaning against the wall.
"Let me tell you a story, Magnus. This will count as my last attempt."
He spoke as the haft of his scythe rasped against the floor.
"Once, there was another unfortunate soul like you. He was chosen from the very beginning—but the one who chose him was not the same as the one who chose you. He was unlucky his entire life. Along the predetermined line of fate, every great undertaking he tried to accomplish ended in failure."
Hades' voice paused.
"You see, he's the opposite of you. You were meant to enjoy smooth sailing all the way—until you ran into me."
"But later, he changed his fate. On one hand, he did indeed correct many of his own bad temperaments. On the other hand… not to boast, but the tides of the warp also need someone to cut them off in order to bring about major change—"
"You changed his fate line?"
Magnus' voice trembled. He listened as Hades fell silent for a moment.
"Yes. Blanks are best suited for this kind of thing, aren't they? Rather than carefully entangling oneself with all the tides of fate using psychic power, it's better to sever them directly. Unfortunately, that requires the Blank to be powerful enough."
"You're the only one who can do this?"
"Yes."
Magnus fell silent.
"You were talking about Mortarion just now? He was also… also…"
"Shh. Be quiet, Magnus."
Hades said.
"So you are the luckiest among the unfortunate, Magnus."
Magnus recalled the unique aura of death surrounding Mortarion, and his pathological way of acting and thinking. It was hard to imagine what Mortarion must have experienced in the past.
"Not just you. Not just him either."
Hades murmured.
"I have also witnessed an entire legion on the brink of annihilation—its sons drowning in blood, its master unable to escape his destiny. At present, he too… could be said to have strayed from his predetermined fate."
"…Angron?"
Hades remained silent.
"You should have seen the device on his head. That's why I say you are fortunate."
Magnus fell into a deathlike silence. After a long while, he finally asked softly,
"You originally… came to help me break free… from those things?"
"Perhaps." Hades said, "But you are different from them. Even at their most perilous moments, their souls never yielded for even an instant. Magnus—you know what I'm referring to."
From the very beginning, Magnus had already handed over a part of his soul to Tzeentch. What he faced was not a cruel curse, but lies coated thickly in honey.
"Then… can I still…?"
He opened his mouth in vain—it was nothing more than a reflex.
"Don't think about those things anymore, Magnus."
Cold words rang by his ear. Hades' previous methods had all involved isolating the gaze of the warp, then attempting things that conformed to physics and psychology. But Magnus' situation meant that he was destined never to be able to completely sever himself from the warp.
"Accept the cruel reality, and then atone, Magnus. That is my most sincere advice to you. Do only what the Emperor commands you to do, and think of nothing else."
Magnus tried to tug the corner of his mouth into a dry, bitter smile, as if to prove that he had truly gone numb—numb enough to accept all of this. Yet all he could feel was blood seeping from the corner of his lips.
"…My story was already over from the very beginning, wasn't it?"
Hades stood up and irritably paced the cramped cell once more. This was exactly what he hated about Tzeentch: when killing the other side could not serve as a solution, you were forced to think of other methods—but no matter what plan you devised, it would still fall into the Changer of Ways' calculations.
Judging from the Emperor's posture, Hades guessed that He intended to use Magnus as a one-time bomb—throw him out at a critical moment and blow up the "pony." But the question was: could that really be relied upon?
Originally, Hades had thought it was feasible. But he had come to realize that Magnus himself already carried a tinge of Tzeentch's color. This was a gamble.
Moreover, he could not be certain whether Magnus was merely a smokescreen, or truly the pivotal point. After all, the anchor of Prospero had already been torn away; the greatest turning point Magnus could have exerted upon fate had already passed.
The Emperor clearly had all this in mind. In fact, He was already summoning him to depart—this was Hades' last day guarding Magnus.
"Alright. Let me try one last time… Magnus, are you willing to make one attempt, however slim the hope?"
Hades saw Magnus futilely raise his hands.
"Is this the Emperor's order?"
Hades' face was expressionless. He opened a channel and raised his voice.
"Emperor, I am going to beat Magnus."
"Go ahead."
The channel on the other end cut off with utter indifference. Magnus looked as if he was about to scream silently again.
"Now it is," Hades said calmly.
"Next, you need to cooperate with me."
"Cooperate with you beating me up?!"
"Yes—and no," Hades replied.
"Now… you must hand over the permissions to your soul to a Blank."
Before Magnus could respond, the black domain surged up.
. . .
Magnus screamed and thrashed in the sea of his spiritual consciousness, fleeing desperately toward the distance. He didn't want that thing to touch him—never!!!
But he was far too weak. The Emperor's psychic suppression and the fall of the Thousand Sons had drastically dimmed the light of Magnus' soul. In the past, he could have simply left, casting the accursed thing far behind him.
He watched helplessly as the monster swallowed him. It was like swarms of insects crawling densely over his skin, like his very being falling into a bottomless, reeking bog. His soul suffered worse than death itself, flames far hotter than the fires of hell scorching it.
He resisted instinctively, yet from far away he heard an enraged roar:
"Magnus—just f*cking endure it for a moment! Even Malcador was tougher than you!"
Magnus suddenly remembered why he was here, and what that reeking, accursed thing actually was.
"Knock me out!"
"I'd love to just knock you out!"
Then Magnus saw that flash of blue before his eyes—there—he remembered now!
The magnificent waves of the Great Ocean seemed as vivid as yesterday. At the summit of the Great Pyramid of Prospero, a mighty being of the warp had descended from its divine pedestal and signed a pact with him.
Darkness twisted, trying to burrow deep into his soul.
A shriek rang out from the depths of his spirit. He saw Prospero burning fiercely, the souls of its people aflame, feeding Him with power.
Darkness and the scythe pierced toward him together. A strange, uncanny light exploded violently!
After a moment of blinding brilliance, everything returned to its original place, as if nothing had changed at all.
Then Magnus heard the sound of a body hitting the ground, followed by retching. The tide of weakness began to recede, and he slowly regained his grip on the boundaries of the physical world.
He smelled blood—but it wasn't his.
"…Did it work?" he asked, trembling.
"It failed."
Hades silently wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. As expected of Tzeentch—and as expected of a psychic primarch. Hades could feel that the mark Tzeentch had planted within Magnus was stronger than the psychic presence of an entire planet. Combined with Magnus' own soul resisting him… it had been too hasty. He'd rushed it.
Far away, the Emperor's hand, which had been studying a map, paused slightly.
"So that's where the fireworks were."
He murmured softly. At the same time, the Emperor opened a channel.
"Don't waste your strength, Hades."
Hades took a deep breath.
"It was still somewhat useful…" he said quietly, looking at Magnus.
"I tore a small opening in your soul at the end, Magnus… do not try to heal it. That marks the location where He resides. You understand what I mean?"
"…I will stay away from that place."
Magnus replied weakly, still seemingly immersed in the dizziness left behind by the black domain. Though Hades had tried his best not to harm him… the damage wasn't severe, but the nausea was overwhelming.
Hades frowned.
"I mean that if you sense anything wrong with that area, you are to go to the Emperor immediately—or Malcador."
This effectively gave Magnus an early-warning capability. In a sense, it also made it easier for Magnus to communicate with Tzeentch—
But if Magnus wished, Tzeentch could communicate with him without obstruction anyway, so it still counted as giving Magnus a means of self-monitoring.
Static crackled through the channel. Hades paused, and then a light, casual voice sounded.
"Well then, I really do have to go now."
"Enjoy your life in the big jail, Magnus. Don't overthink things and start inventing heresies."
"Reform early, become a new man, listen to the Emperor. Don't go stirring up trouble on your own. Maybe ten thousand years from now, you'll get a chance to turn things around and be reborn."
There came the sound of iron bars opening, then footsteps, the door closing, the clatter of armor joints.
Magnus breathed in the stench of blood lingering in the cell. In the remaining intact years of his life, he would come to realize that this was the last sentence he ever heard that wished him well—one that even carried a trace of trust.
He examined that portion of his soul. He gazed upon Him, just as He had always gazed silently upon him before.
At last, Magnus sank into the quiet years he had once so deeply longed for.
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