The air in the Throne Room was heavier than the deepest ocean.
The Emperor's psychic fire still burned quietly on the two pillars—an eternal punishment for traitors.
Yet the Astartes present did not dare glance at the suffering Erebus and Kor Phaeron.
Their eyes were glued to the huge screen or cast in horror at the grey-armored, scripture-covered warriors of the XVII Legion—the Word Bearers.
"No… this is impossible… absolutely impossible!"
A shrill scream tore from the Word Bearers' ranks.
Not every Word Bearer was Erebus.
The vast majority of the XVII Legion were pious.
Yes, they were fanatical, stubborn, even somewhat mystical.
But their aim had been to find humanity a spiritual pillar, to prove the Emperor's greatness.
After Perfect City Monarchia was reduced to ash, though grief-stricken and lost, many warriors still tried, in the humblest way, to love their Emperor.
They believed it a trial, like the gods' tests of believers in ancient myths.
But now the screen told them: the end of your trial is a pile of dung.
"We spread truth! We fight for humanity's soul!"
A Word Bearers captain lost all control.
"This is truth?! This is the soul's destination?!"
"The Emperor rejected our worship because He would not be a god. So… so we kneel to Warp parasites who only want to rip out our guts for jump rope?!"
His voice cracked with sobs—the total, shattering collapse of a believer discovering the Holy Grail is a chamber pot full of vomit.
The Word Bearers' formation broke.
The once-ordered grey squares now looked like men with their spines ripped out.
Some knelt retching; others frantically scraped the Colchisian runes from their armor as if the symbols had turned to hot iron.
"This is… too disgusting."
Tarvitz, a captain of the Emperor's Children who prized decorum, did not even bother smoothing hair soaked with cold sweat.
"So these are Lorgar's 'better gods'?"
He turned to Lucius; the usually swaggering swordsman looked as if he'd swallowed a fly.
"If that is the price of 'perfection'," Tarvitz murmured, "I'd rather be a mediocre mortal."
In the World Eaters' contingent the mood was different.
No tears, only rage pressed to the limit—the Butcher's Nails reacting to violent stimulus.
Khârn, captain of the Eighth Assault Company, most trusted son of Angron, stared at one man.
Not the screen, but real—Angul-Tai.
Commander of the Word Bearers' Saw-Toothed Sun, one of the few brothers Khârn could call "friend."
Angul-Tai stood with lowered head, trembling.
His helmet was off, his face slick with sweat.
"Look at me, Angul."
Khârn's voice was low and hoarse; his chainaxe remained idle.
He restrained himself; the Nails screamed kill, yet a sliver of reason held.
"Tell me this isn't real."
Khârn stepped closer, each stride like walking on blades. "Tell me you didn't bow to daemons for 'power.'"
"Tell me the honor and brotherhood we spoke of in the dueling pits wasn't groundwork for this… this filth!"
Angul-Tai raised his head.
"Khârn, I don't know how it came to this."
Angul-Tai's voice no longer carried its old certainty.
Among the Ultramarines a complex mood spread.
They had been the Destroyers of Perfect City.
Minutes earlier they had felt guilty for carrying out the Order.
Burning a city of art and shaming brothers violated their sense of honor.
But now, watching Word Bearers perform bloody sacrifices across Worlds, seeding rebellion like a virus, that guilt turned to cold anger and relief.
"We did nothing wrong."
Hill gripped his Bolter, eyes sharp as blades.
"The Primarch was right. The Emperor was right."
He spoke to his brothers, voice firm beyond doubt.
"Look at them. That is not piety—it is a cradle of madness."
"Had we flinched, had we spared the city—who knows what worse horrors they would have birthed."
Brotherhood had caused the earlier guilt; now the pre-meditated betrayal on screen severed it.
From this moment the Ultramarines regarded the Word Bearers not with sympathy but as a latent threat.
The rift between the two Legions became an unbridgeable abyss.
If any Legion felt terror, it was the Thousand Sons.
Azhek Ahriman, Chief Librarian, stood rigid.
A scholar and psychic master, he believed knowledge had no morality; power lay in the user.
He had scorned the Space Wolves' ignorance as primitive fear of the unknown.
But seeing Lorgar's fate in the Warp, seeing how "Chaos" warped reality and corrupted minds, Ahriman faltered.
"That… is un-Order."
He murmured, fingers tracing his staff. "We modeled the Warp, sought formulas to explain it."
"But Lorgar showed us pure madness—unquantifiable chaos."
"What if our 'control' is merely bait laid by those things to snare us?"
The thought grew like poisonous weed.
He looked to his Primarch Magnus; the Cyclops stood straight, yet his single eye flickered with doubt.
Even the most confident wizard, facing Hell's abyss, must question whether his torch is safe.
"So this… is our future enemy?"
Sigismund's voice broke the quiet.
The Imperial Fists First Captain, most famed duelist of the Great Crusade, slowly drew his black two-handed sword.
He did not watch the screen; he stared at the reflection on the blade.
Not xenos. Not tyrants. But our own brothers—plus a horde of damned monsters.
Sigismund raised his head, eyes locking on the Word Bearers' phalanx.
There was no fear in that gaze—only a near-fanatical hunger to purge through slaughter.
Good.
A cruel smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
I'm sick of hacking xenos. These oath-breaking, soul-selling scum… they'll feel perfect under my blade.
I was just thinking the same.
Fafnir Rann, the equally war-hungry Imperial Fists captain, hefted his power-axe; their gazes met in mid-air, forging a pact only executioners can understand.
For the Imperial Fists it's simple: stay loyal and we're brothers; turn traitor—no matter who you are, no matter your excuse—and you're just another rock waiting to be smashed.
Nothing steadied the ranks in this chaos like that brutal binary clarity.
In the darkest corner of the hall, Raven Guard and Night Lords sank into a different kind of silence.
Sharrowkyn, elite of the Raven Guard, stood with folded arms, coldly watching it all.
They're afraid.
he murmured to the brother at his side.
Even the most fanatical Word Bearers—deep down, their eyes are full of fear.
They dread a Universe without gods, so they'll conjure a daemon and crown it king just to fill the void inside.
A bunch of weaned babes.
Hey, leave the philosophy at home.
Sevatar, First Captain of the Night Lords, wore his trademark mocking grin.
He stared at the insane World on the screen—flayed, tormented victims—and a flicker of disgust crossed his eyes.
The Night Lords skin and terrify too,
but for punishment, for Order—at least that's what Konrad Curze believes.
Chaos does it for pleasure.
These zealots turn killing into a nauseating art.
Sevatar spat. 'Killing is killing. All that chanting, sacrificing, ritual crap—so damned precious. One clean cut, job done.
Still…
Sevatar's gaze shifted to Lorgar, the Primarch still unconscious.
'This show's first-rate. A would-be saint becomes the biggest devil. Even our lunatic old man would applaud the irony.
While reactions varied, the screen shifted again.
This time it wasn't Lorgar's solo performance; it was a forecast for the entire Milky Way Galaxy.
[Though Lorgar set events in motion, he knew a single Legion, the Word Bearers, could never topple the Imperium alone.]
[He needed allies. He needed weightier pieces.]
[He turned his eyes to brothers simmering with resentment, each carrying gaping flaws.]
The view split into panels.
Top-left: Perturabo, exhausted and embittered while crushing revolts on Olympia.
Top-right: Angron, butchered by the Butcher's Nails, slamming his head against a wall in agony.
Bottom-left: Mortarion, trapped in memories of plague-World Barbarus, hating the Emperor.
Bottom-right: Fulgrim, alone in a gaudy palace, entranced by an alien silver blade.
[Every crack is a gate the Warp forces open.]
[Every unmet desire, every unquenched rage, every moment of unappreciated loneliness… the gods have priced them all.]
The hall's air turned heavier still.
Legions who had laughed at the Word Bearers now fell silent.
Especially the Astartes of those four Legions.
They watched in horror as the 'prey' Lorgar had chosen were none other than their beloved gene-fathers.
'No… the Phoenix would never—'
An Emperor's Children captain started, but the words died when he saw Fulgrim's obsessed gaze upon the alien sword.
That look—that sick hunger for ultimate sensation—was all too familiar.
It was the perfectionism they prided themselves on, the slope they had already begun sliding down.
'A trap,'
Alpharius said softly from the shadows.
'A vast web. Lorgar is only one spider weaving it. And every one of us… is crawling straight into the silk.'
'Including you, Alpharius?'
Dorn turned, eyes cold upon the enigmatic brother.
Alpharius answered only with a knowing smile.
'Perhaps, Rogal. In this Universe, who dares claim to be fully awake?'
At that knife-edge moment Leman Russ, Lord of the Space Wolves, broke his silence with a long howl.
'Enough! Quit wringing your hands like frightened maidens!'
He smashed his tankard on the floor, shards flying.
Striding to the hall's centre, his wild hair stirred by no wind, a storm-aura erupting around him.
'Look at them! Those monsters! Those traitors!'
He jabbed at the screen, then at the Word Bearers. 'If that future comes, we've only one way to live!'
He drew the Banshee's Fang, its point aimed at the bewildered Word Bearers.
'Reach for the Allfather and I'll hack the claw off! Bow to those cursed gods and I'll kick your severed head across the stars!'
'No matter who! No matter what Legion! Even my own kin!'
Bestial light blazed in Russ's eyes as he swept the gathering of Primarchs and Astartes.
'No deep philosophy! No damned truth! Just a brawl! Win or die! Simple as that!'
His crude, brutal declaration swept through the chamber like an icy gale, scattering the clinging stench of despair.
Many Astartes lifted their heads.
Right—why over-think?
The enemy has shown his face; the future's script is written—so tear the pages apart.
With Bolters, with Chainswords, with bare fists—smash that cursed future to splinters.
'Exactly.'
The Khan grinned, hawk-eyes reignited. 'If the storm is coming, we ride straight into it.'
'In a storm, only the fastest riders survive.'
'And we…' he looked to his White Scars sons, 'we are the storm.'