Axis smiled, his eyes narrowing as he asked, "How did you arrive in this era? Who sent you?"
Chaos Khârn grinned, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth as he looked at Axis with a sneer.
"The great Blood God sent me here," he crowed, "The Blood God granted me the power to traverse time and space! He sent me to hunt the blasphemers! And you… your blood will be offered to the great Blood God, and your skull will be presented to the Brass Throne."
"You lie," Axis scoffed.
He raised a hand, and an unseen force seized Chaos Khârn's throat, lifting him into the air.
"Do not waste my time. Khorne does not simply grant mortals the ability to travel through time, unless…" Axis's gaze was as sharp as a blade, "Unless someone deliberately guided you here."
The four Chaos Gods indeed possessed the power to send their servants across time. By their very nature, the Chaos Gods were multiverse-level entities, existing across all timelines and dimensions, in the past, present, and future.
But if a Chaos God had truly sent him, there was no reason for this champion to appear before him now. It was a meaningless gesture. All he could do was offer up his own head, which was a bizarre and illogical turn of events.
This warrior seemed less like an agent on a divine mission and more like the victim of a random accident, having received no orders from the Blood God at all.
"Hahaha, kill me?" Chaos Khârn, the Champion of Chaos, declared with absolute confidence. "How laughable! The great Blood God protects me. I cannot be killed. No one in this brocken world can kill me."
He was a being empowered by the Chaos Gods themselves, unlike the many. He was even more favored than many a Daemon Prince. After all, Daemon Princes merely pleased their patrons through acts of sacrifice.
Therefore, even if he were slain in the materium, he felt no fear. The great and true God of Chaos, the magnificent Blood God, would receive his soul, return it to his side, and forge him a new body.
As a Champion of Chaos, a fragment of his soul was kept by the Blood God's side.
Even if his soul were destroyed, his patron god could resurrect him. The true Gods of Chaos transcended the concepts of time, space, and matter.
Even in another reality, the Blood God was still the Blood God.
"No one can kill you? I would not be so sure," a cold voice interjected.
"I am the daughter of the Emperor, the Eldest Princess of the Imperium. Answer our questions honestly, and perhaps your death will be a comfortable one.," Kasha declared with a snort, her form erupting in a golden psychic aura, "I too possess my father's sacred psychic might. Do you truly believe I cannot kill you?"
Having inherited the Emperor's power, she could truly destroy a Chaos Champion, not merely banish their spirit back to the Warp.
Feeling the surge of sacred, golden psychic energy, Khârn's expression changed drastically.
This was undeniably the Emperor's power, a force that could easily annihilate his physical form. But to truly kill him was still impossible, for a fragment of his soul was protected upon the Brass Throne by the great Blood God himself.
However, having his soul shattered and grievously wounded by the Emperor's power would still be a devastating blow.
It might take him thousands of years to recover. After a moment of careful consideration, Khârn decided to indulge Axis. He was also curious about this strange alternate world, a parallel universe that seemed to be in the era of the Great Crusade.
"To be honest, I do not know how I appeared here. Do you believe me?" Khârn said with a cold laugh.
In this, he was not lying.
He truly had no idea how he had arrived. Perhaps the Blood God had sent him, but if so, he had not been given a mission. The psychic power emanating from the woman who called herself the Eldest Princess of the Imperium was the Emperor's, yet it was far from being as powerful as the Emperor he knew.
"Then tell me what era you come from," Axis said, "You are from the future, I presume? What do you know of what is to come? For instance, the result of this Great Heresy."
"That is something I can talk about," Khârn sneered, "I come from ten thousand years in the future. I am a Champion of the Chaos Gods. In my era, the 12th Legion has already sworn allegiance to the Chaos Gods, casting off the control of the False Emperor. We have become free Chaos Space Marines, fighting for the glory of the great Blood God."
Kasha slammed her psychic staff into the ground, her eyes glowing with golden light, "Although you are Khârn, you are not one of Axis's sons. Your gene-seed is wrong. And Axis would never betray my father."
What an absurd claim.
The 12th Legion was unique, their gene-seed originating from Axis. But this warrior before them possessed none of Axis's power. The most obvious difference was the lack of the Golden Transformation.
"I never said I was a son of Axis. In fact, in the future Imperium, neither of you two exists," Chaos Khârn said, his silence breaking into a monstrous grin. "The Eldest Princess of the Imperium and the Twelfth Primarch, Axis. I have never even heard of you."
This was fascinating. The past he had arrived in was not the one he knew. Here, there was a different primarch and a Princess of the Imperium. Now, Khârn desperately wanted to see their expressions when he told them of the Imperium's dark and hopeless future.
Axis remained composed, but Kasha's face paled.
A future without her or Axis? What could that mean?
"Are you saying that in your era, the primarch of the 12th Legion is not Axis?" Kasha asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"That's right. You and Axis simply do not exist. In the past I know, there is no record of either of you. Our 12th Legion was once called the War Hounds, but after the return of Angron, he renamed us the World Eaters. Our father is Angron," Khârn explained.
Kasha's expression flickered, and she looked nervously toward Axis. What did he mean, they didn't exist?
"Parallel universes can have their differences," Axis said calmly. He turned back to Khârn. "I ask you, what of the Second and Eleventh Primarchs in your time? And who among the primarchs betrayed the Emperor? You should know that."
"The traitor primarchs were Horus, Fulgrim, Angron, Mortarion, Lorgar, Alpharius, Konrad Curze, Perturabo, and Magnus," Khârn recited. "As for the Second and Eleventh, they were expunged by the Emperor during the Rangdan Xenocides. Those two legions do not exist."
"You see, Kasha? It is different from our reality," Axis pointed out, "In his timeline, the Second and Eleventh Primarchs do not exist, and both Perturabo and Magnus turned traitor, whereas our Iron Warriors remain loyal."
It was because of Axis's presence that the two lost primarchs still existed and that certain traitor primarchs remained loyal. His arrival had completely altered the destiny of the 12th Legion, and with it, the fate of Magnus as well.
Kasha nodded slowly.
Now she finally understood the true depth of Axis's caution. His suspicion of Perturabo had not been without reason. In another world, he had indeed betrayed them.
"Tell me the outcome of this Heresy," Kasha demanded. "Did we achieve final victory? Was Horus slain?"
"Horus did not win, but neither did the Emperor," Chaos Khârn said with a chilling smirk. "The Emperor would be rendered neither living nor dead, eternally trapped upon the Golden Throne."
"My father could never be defeated by Horus!" Kasha retorted, remembering the battle she had witnessed between the Emperor and Axis, a testament to her father's immense power.
"I am not lying. Horus and the Emperor will fight to a mutual ruin."
"But we know everything now! We can change it! My father's fate can be altered!" Kasha shouted in anger.
"Hahaha! Do you think you can defy destiny? You think you can change the future?" Khârn laughed, "All you do is in vain. How utterly ridiculous! The Emperor is doomed to sit upon the Golden Throne, to become a decaying corpse, a Corpse-Emperor. The entire galaxy will rot. The future is one of despair. The Imperium of Man will become the very thing you despise. There is no future for humanity, only the rotting kingdom of the False Emperor. And you… you are but pawns on a board! The future of the Imperium holds only failure and war. Only the True Gods of Chaos can bring salvation!"
He delivered this speech with a sneer, expecting it to shatter Axis, to drive him into a rage.
But he was disappointed. Axis's expression remained placid, showing not a ripple of emotion. He had long known the Emperor was destined for the Golden Throne. In fact, the Emperor himself knew it was an unavoidable fate.
Only Kasha, standing beside him, looked utterly devastated.
The future Chaos Khârn described was a shock too great for her to bear. Her father would become a corpse on a throne. But what of the other primarchs?
"The loyalist primarchs in this Great Heresy," Kasha said, her body blazing with golden psychic power as she seized Khârn by the neck, "What became of them? Tell me all their fates."
Chaos Khârn let out a gurgling, rattling laugh.
"Hahaha, as the new Warmaster said, the age of the Primarchs is over. All the primarchs will leave the Imperium, leave the Emperor. In the end, only the Corpse Throne will remain."
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It's 200 ps per bonus chapter~