The common Iron Warriors said little in response to Perturabo's command, but the leading Warsmiths stood in silence, watching their gene-father without uttering a word, as if they sought to etch his pale visage into their memories forever. Magnus's words held a certain logic, yet that did not mean they endorsed them, they simply understood their father's nature.
The tactical situation was clear: they could not defeat the Iron Men in open battle. Boarding would not only restrict the Iron Men's weapons but also their own equipment. Deprived of their Knights, Titans, and armored columns, they would be fundamentally diminished. Yet, despite this, they did not refuse.
Though they had turned their backs on the Imperium, it did not mean they were devoid of courage. In the eras before their Primarchs had returned to them, there were those who had boarded Orkish Attack Moons with the certainty of death. The Salamanders had once followed Vulkan to conquer Ullanor, heroically boarding the enemy's planetary fortress. Today, they would follow their own Primarch-father in making this desperate, harrowing choice. Even though they could see no sliver of hope and knew the decision was irrational, they resolved to follow.
They did so simply because Perturabo was their gene-father. They were not warriors blinded by the hollow ideals of the Imperium; they were merely children who did not wish to disappoint their sire. It was out of that devotion to Perturabo that they had rebelled against the Imperium in the first place.
Perhaps in the ten millennia since, they had wrought countless slaughters, but compared to other traitors, they remained relatively temperate. They had smitten the Aeldari, annihilated Necrons, driven back the Tyranids, purged Orks, and enslaved Imperial worlds. Yet, even under their yoke, the mortals on those worlds did not fare much worse than they had before.
The Imperium never lacked for souls. Under Imperial rule, laborers toiled fifteen or sixteen hours a day; it was no different under the rule of the Iron Warriors. Death was never far from these mortals, but at least they did not have to fear being slaughtered in droves by the Iron Warriors to appease dark gods. Nor did they have to worry about status; everyone was a slave. Those who had once stood high and mighty above the common folk now toiled alongside them, sweating in the same dirt. Without exception.
On some enslaved worlds, the mortals did not even desire the Imperium's liberation. They knew all too well that if the Imperium drove the Iron Warriors away, they would immediately be put to the sword, a process euphemistically termed "sending them before the Emperor to repent for their sins." After all, in the eyes of the Imperium, the mere fact that they had not resisted and had instead labored for the traitors was a sin in itself. Their production of materiel for the traitors was, to the Imperium, an act of betrayal. And yet, they had only ever tried to survive.
Once the sons loyal to their Primarch-father had made their preparations, Perturabo signaled Magnus. The Thousand Sons stood in disciplined ranks across the vast plaza beneath the Tower of the Cyclops. The scene bore a haunting resemblance to the Great Crusade ten millennia prior. As Magnus raised his weapon, the Thousand Sons sorcerers below mirrored the gesture, raising their force staves. The psykers among the cultists likewise extended their hands to offer their strength.
As the psychic radiance erupting from Magnus suddenly intensified, the mortal sorcerers below were, in an instant, drained of their very life force, reduced to desiccated husks. To the forces of Chaos, mortals were utterly worthless; every scrap of power diverted meant the possibility of transporting more troops. The well-equipped cultists were a similarly expendable resource, even if they served no purpose, their use as a distraction for the Iron Men's focus was value enough for the plan at hand.
Sensors across the Void Sword suddenly detected a surge in psychic energy. Axion, entirely unaware of the specific nature of the event, immediately increased the efficiency of the ship's internal psychic-nullification arrays. Unlike the warp-transmissions of the Aeldari who had previously boarded, the psychic resonance generated by a few individuals was usually negligible to the Void Sword, which was already loaded with the presence of hundreds of millions of psykers.
However, Magnus's power was monumental. Moreover, this transmission involved tens of thousands of Astartes and hundreds of thousands of elite cultists selected by the Primarch himself. The resulting psychic fluctuation was as glaring and obvious as an accidental discharge from one of the ship's own psychic-weaponry arrays. As the Void Sword's dampeners began to hemorrhage the sudden influx of raw psychic energy, Magnus, for the first time, felt his connection to the Warp severed.
Magnus, refusing to yield, poured every ounce of his will into the attempt, just as he had done so long ago when he sent his warning to the Emperor.
The surging psychic power ultimately took hold. Magnus felt himself drawn through a barrier as vast as an endless abyss. Yet, the outcome defied all expectations. Amidst a flash of tumultuous energy, the Thousand Sons, the Iron Warriors, and the two Primarchs vanished from Sortiarius. On the surface, the mortal cultists who had remained, waiting to be transported, burst into a rain of gore and shattered meat.
For a heartbeat, Magnus believed his efforts had been rewarded. But what followed left him bewildered.
The surrounding environment bore the distinct aesthetic of an Imperial vessel, and upon a high dais in the distance, a colossal golden statue of the Emperor seemed to be watching him. It was a chapel. Magnus quickly identified the function of the chamber, yet as he glanced around, there was nothing but rows of empty pews, candles flickering in the stagnant air, and the scent of incense drifting through the silent space.
"How can this be?"
Aside from himself, there was no sign of anyone, neither the Thousand Sons, nor the Iron Warriors, nor Perturabo.
"My teleportation should not have deviated to this degree. If I was able to arrive here, they should be nearby."
Elsewhere, upon an uncharted world in the Warp, the roiling psychic energy slowly dissipated. The Iron Warriors and Thousand Sons inspected their surroundings, while Perturabo's face was etched with confusion.
"Where is this?"
No one could answer. The fully armed Iron Warriors immediately began to reconnoiter the area. Soon, a son reported back to Perturabo: their analysis indicated they had suffered a catastrophic failure in their psychic transit. The deviation was so great that it had deposited them upon a nameless world within the depths of the Warp.
They had no idea where they were.
Perturabo strode toward the equally bewildered Thousand Sons and seized Ahriman by the gorget. "Tell me! What exactly was Magnus's plan? What is he thinking?! Is this the result of him tinkering with his twisted sorcery every single day?!"
The atmosphere between the two Legions turned violently tense. At such close quarters, the Thousand Sons were no match for the Iron Warriors. Both had been empowered by the forces of Chaos, and in terms of resistance to malefic influence, the Iron Warriors were no weaker. The number of Thousand Sons sorcerers was limited, and outside of their Arcana Astartes, their rank-and-file warriors could not hope to best the Iron Warriors in hand-to-hand combat.
They did not know that Magnus, at that very moment, was even more confounded than they were. For before him, the statue of the Emperor in the chapel, the one that had stood motionless upon its alloyed dais, was now stepping down, one hand gripping its sword, its gaze filled with an unwavering, judging scrutiny.
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