Zzzlaaap—
The storm vortex above the Black Throne fully transformed into a golden maelstrom of psy-lightning, and faint angelic figures seemed to wheel within it.
Then, amid the undulating hymn, the fragrance of sacred oil and candles drifted in, soothing to the heart.
The soul-force of that Great Being descended into the Webway's reality, stirring myriad visions.
Even without proclamation or signal, everyone present felt that holy presence and reached the same conclusion in their hearts.
"Has… has the Great Emperor descended?"
Kaul, the Archmagos of Black-Mechanica, trembled in his augmetic frame; his vox came out distorted.
Even prepared as he was, the sanctity of that arrival shook him to the core.
"Yes. The Emperor has come. He will take the Black Throne and hold this precious Webway city for Mankind."
Eden gazed at the Throne, awed despite himself.
The Emperor's entrance effects were… on another level. Maybe he could borrow a few tricks later.
If this revival succeeded, His Majesty could, through the clone-body, rise from the Throne and exist again in the material world.
It might reshape the whole Imperium—and bring solace to countless souls on the edge of despair.
"What should we do? Do we kneel to receive Him—or is there other protocol?
By the Emperor—genius Kaul is honored to behold the Divine One! What glory—such a moment has never graced the Salli Clan.
Wouldn't you say so, Father!"
Worked up, Kaul summoned the family heirloom—a snarling, black ultra-heavy servo-cranium crafted from his sire's skull.
The dutiful son gave the relic a habitual pat to welcome the great hour.
No matter one's station, before the Master of Mankind, even giants of the Imperium felt tight-strung with reverence.
"Just keep the Throne-machinery stable," Eden said. "If you have strength to spare, hold this zone—no Chaos assassins get through."
He shifted to a fighting stance, wary of every change in the air—especially anything that smelled of the number nine.
The Emperor was still in the midst of revival; mishaps could strike at any moment—most of all tricks from the Changer of Ways.
Eden noticed ninety-nine candelabra around the Throne still burning, their smoke laced with a faint blackness.
He frowned. Ill-omened.
Vmmm—
A flick of his hand, and with psy power he snuffed out most of them, leaving thirteen flames.
Only then did his shoulders loosen.
In a matter so vital to Mankind, no omens were too small to mind.
Yes, back in the Immaterium Tzeentch had denied meddling with the Black Throne—without the tiniest tell of a lie.
And yet anything from that mouth was a Möbius of half-truths; belief meant falling without end.
Even if the Changer told the truth, it remained untrustworthy—an entity willing to lie to itself when the whim took it. Cheating itself was the apex of chaos and amusement.
Eden told no one outside the Throne core that the Emperor's revival was imminent.
The more who knew, the more likely some leak would bring the Dark Gods down upon them.
Even so, Khan, the Custodians, and all nearby forces grew instinctively solemn and knit a tight defensive ring— as if guided by fate.
This might be the most sacred, consequential moment in ten millennia of the Imperium.
...
On the Black Throne.
The Emperor's clone-body held a king's poise; its heartbeat thundered so fiercely it nearly drowned the whir of cog-gears.
The eyelids remained shut, but the psy-gleam spilling from their corners bathed all nearby in light.
Gear arrays turned with rhythmic precision. From their bites gushed liquid gold, building the Throne's back into a golden Gothic nimbus.
Around it, faint reliefs of angels and the Imperial aquila surfaced and held.
The Emperor's vast psychic might was reshaping the Black Throne—fitting it to hold His soul and flesh.
The surge rippled through the Warp as well, carving clear traces in the Immaterium.
"We won't be able to hide this…"
Eden's "little sun" essence felt the warp-shift and his worry deepened.
If he could sense it, the Dark Gods surely could—and faster.
They would not allow this to happen.
He made the call and snapped to Kaul, who was stabilizing the Throne systems:
"Kaul, reinforce all force-field layers. Push output to maximum."
The warning bells were ringing. It was time to light up every shield they had.
Yes, it would drain them faster; the whole grid wouldn't hold indefinitely.
But they only needed to survive this window.
Eden then pinged Khan, the Custodians, and all nearby arms—full red alert.
Eyes out for any Chaos incursion.
He had barely sent the message when the zone itself turned.
An oppressive Chaos miasma sank over them, heavy on every chest, like a fist around the heart.
Breath caught.
Worse—machine structures and weapons began to corrupt.
Red rust crept like blood; gears sprouted pink, perfumed tendrils; twisted faces embossed themselves over crucial panels.
Armor and arms worn by Imperial warriors warped in kind; a trigger bloomed sharp teeth, impossible to squeeze.
In seconds, most weaponry around the Black Throne was combat-dead.
"The Dark Gods' strike is here…"
Eden watched the sudden unraveling, dread mounting.
Beyond assassination, he feared the Black Throne's machinery would buckle under warp taint.
That would be the end.
Thankfully, the sacred power within the Throne's conduits surged higher at the intrusion—more golden light flooded the systems,
blunting the corruption's bite.
"By the Machine-Goddess—unknown lifeforms have breached our perimeter and are closing on the Throne at speed!"
Before Eden could exhale, Kaul's warning cut in.
Data followed: a repaired Veil rift elsewhere in the complex had been quietly pried open again.
More defensive assets were redeploying toward the breach.
"Chaos assassins."
The thought struck Eden at once.
A terrifying gambit—no one knew what a strike at this moment might do to the Emperor— or how grievously it might wound Him.
One thing was sure: the Black Throne would be wrecked; Mankind would lose its only counter to the daemon tide; Commorragh's Webway city would be lost.
"Why isn't my spider-sense picking them up?"
His nerves twanged sharp.
Then clarity: some subtle force had blinded his second sight—the moment he'd entered the Warp to fetch the Emperor.
At that instant, the Changer of Ways had planted a quiet hook—a little revenge.
Not only the Savior; Khan, the Custodians, and other still-mobile fighters swept the zone for the intruders.
Their armor auspex found nothing; even the psyker adepts scoured and came up empty.
All knew the Chaos assassins were inside—yet it was as if those abominations had vanished from both the psychic and physical layers.
Their methods left no trail.
If psy-sensing was foiled, only technology remained.
If the assassins had crossed into Webway-realspace, they had bodies—bodies that could not hide every footprint.
"Webby, throw all compute at this. Work with Kaul and find the infiltrators!"
Eden issued the new order.
The Machine-Goddess Webby poured in all authority and cycles, seizing every Throne-system—sensors, weapons, lighting, shields—all under her watch.
The Savior-Domain's comms hiccuped as compute was yanked; even the Mechanica forums lag-spiked, pages timing out.
Across the litanet, users found their Wi-Fi choking or dropping outright.
Worst hit: greasehead tinkerers mid-experiment and civil officers in workflow—unsaved data vanished.
They'd have to start over.
The drawdown was costly—but necessary.
If the Dark Gods' assassins succeeded, the loss to Humanity would be far greater.
Immeasurable.
"Have you found them yet?"
Cold sweat beaded on Eden's brow.
The Emperor was mid-revival, locked deep into the Black Throne and unable to react much at all.
For the moment, it was all on them.
Eden even suspected the Chaos incursion into Commorragh had been a mere decoy—set up for this precise instant—to cripple the Emperor while He was bound to the Throne and a clone-body,
to drastically weaken the Master of Mankind.
Under the Machine-Goddess's control, every meter around the Black Throne fell under total surveillance—even molecular-level perturbations were logged as data.
Kaul and the greaseheads sifted for anomalies, teasing out actionable intel.
They moved fast, clearing sector after sector, until the suspicion narrowed to a zone left of the Throne's core.
That was perilously close.
The Chaos assassins had almost certainly ghosted through multiple lines without notice, now in striking distance of the Throne itself.
Vmmm—
Archmagos Kaul spread a gravity field across the zone. The shifting weight finally distorted the assassins' concealment.
The air rippled.
Eden's heart leapt.
"Got them!"
A white bolt screamed in—Khan of the White Scars, riding the relic craft Pale Hawk, with the Custodian Commander and an elite squad aboard.
Shhhht—
The White Tiger Dao scythed down on the wavering air with gale-force bite.
"Face the storm, abomination!"
Khan opened at full throttle; that Primarch power weapon could hew any daemon-flesh.
But the blow stopped cold.
The hidden assassin flickered into view—something between Drukhari and daemon, a little over three meters tall, horribly agile.
It reeked of blood and hit like a meteor. After catching the White Tiger Dao, it hammered Khan away with a single punch.
Such awful might could only be a Khorne-blessed clone-avatar.
Khan's impact sent Pale Hawk corkscrewing into nearby machine-architecture.
The assassin never slowed—straight for the Emperor's clone-body upon the Black Throne.
The Custodians leapt clear in time and interposed.
"Halt!"
The Commander lifted his shield—only to be upended.
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM—
"By the Throne's will—become a golden bulwark!"
Twelve Warden shields locked into the deck, bursting into blinding barrier-fields.
The onrush hit harder still. Rib-cracking shock rattled organs; blood ran from lips; chaos-corrosion bloomed across armor.
Yet the old Custodian veterans would not yield—knuckles white on their shields.
Die standing. Do not fall back.
No abomination would profane the One upon the Throne.
Khan and the Commander rejoined, tangling the Khorne-spawned assassin.
Eden still held fast before the Throne—not peeling off to assist.
Because the sweep wasn't done.
There might be more than one assassin; if he moved and a second strike came— there'd be no one left to block it at the Throne.
He had the gist of the picture now.
Per the Machine-Goddess's analysis, the clone-tech birthing these assassins mirrored the methods used to fabricate the Emperor's clone-body.
The assassin was likely a Chaos construct left by Supreme Overlord Vect— or a contingency planted by the Changer of Ways.
Under Vect's nose, Tzeentch had corrupted certain "blood performers" among the court, and—leveraging the Emperor-clone process—forged these Chaos assassins.
The earlier Veil rift? Just a distraction.
The real killers had nested within structures around the Black Throne all along, waiting for the hour, for a killing blow at the Emperor.
Perhaps this attack was a joint operation by three Dark Gods. Reason said there could be more than one assassin.
On the Throne, the Emperor's clone-body's aura swelled, a hint of motion stirring.
His Majesty was about to seize the reins of the clone.
At that knife-edge— the Machine-Goddess finally flagged two last assassins.
But it was already late.
A pink and a blue clone-horror slipped past every Warden line and hurtled for the Throne.
"Too close…"
Eden could smell the foul tang and see the venom sheen on their blades.
He raised a psy-shield—and watched them pass through without the slightest drag.
An untouchable-like null effect.
"How in Throne's name—?!"
He swallowed. These Chaos clone-bodies held warp-venom and ignored psy-force.
A paradox—
but with Tzeentch's cunning, not impossible.
It meant the Dark Gods' assassins could, in part, ignore holy energies— and go straight for a physical kill on the Emperor.
"Then stop them!"
Eden snapped his power sword to life and planted himself before the Emperor's clone-body—becoming the wall.
If the aether was useless, it had to be meatspace interception. Worse, at the Throne there were only two souls who could reach in time:
Eden and Kaul.
The stakes were mortal and the hour was grim.
These assassins not only wielded Chaos and negated psy—they were monstrously fast and strong.
One had already gone toe-to-toe with Khan, the Custodian Commander, and a Warden squad without flagging.
Now there were two, and Eden's best weapon—his psy—was jammed.
Against a Dark-God set-piece like this, one misstep meant death.
"This is… genius Kaul's hour of greatest glory, Father!"
Archmagos Kaul threw his titanic frame across their path. A forest of weaponry on his chassis drenched the lane in fire.
In that heartbeat, he set life and death aside.
Perhaps this was the honor the Salli line had hunted and never found.
"For… the Emperor!"
The snarling black heavy servo-cranium forged from his father's skull crackled to life; the aquila on its brow blazed.
It spat a forbidden annihilation ray, lancing the springing tangle of daemon-tendrils— ash on the wind.
Across the galaxy, none scoff at a Magos in a shooting war.
The beam swept toward a clone-assassin to erase it outright—
and then, in the next instant, the servo-cranium lurched, as if a hand of fate had jogged it. The line veered.
A wicked blade flashed.
The heavy servo-skull split down the crown, clattered to the deck, arced wildly— and died.
"Fa—zzzzla—"
Kaul had no time to mourn. The assassin's follow-through was already there.
Under Tzeentch's hex, his cogitators lagged—and the knife went through his plate like a hot edge through butter.
Armor parted. Head and gorget sheared away.
The two assassins never broke stride, closing still further on the Throne.
Only one obstacle remained: the Hope-Primarch Savior.
Eden kept his eyes on the oncoming shapes, forcing his pulse to steady.
This wasn't the hour for grief. He had to spend what time Kaul had bought—
and hold.
Truthfully, as Kaul first stepped up, Eden had already begun to bless himself.
In a normal fight—deprived of psy—he couldn't handle two Dark-God-driven assassins.
By rights, he'd be countered and killed.
The plan—Khorne and the Changer's—was near perfect: a flawless window, every weakness tallied, one by one to be broken.
Now it was his turn. He could feel the venomous gazes behind the assassins—
Slaanesh's hunger for his life, Tzeentch's malice toward the Emperor.
Only… they would never guess he'd kept back another power, untouched till now.
That's the point of a trump card.
Deep in the domain of his little sun essence, a colossal, polished, oil-slick musclebound phantom flexed— and detonated with blinding light.
(End of Chapter)[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"][Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop][Thanks for Reading!]