Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, inside the primary strategic command center.
The glow of the holographic star chart illuminated the faces of everyone in the room.
The Imperial officials were still whispering among themselves, utterly scandalized by this planet's claim to be "Holy Terra."
Abaddon and Aximand were still standing at attention, waiting for their father's judgment.
And in the regional channel, the Imperial players were still arguing like a pot boiling over.
[The Emperor's Will is Unstoppable]: "Try to stop Horus? With what? The Emperor's golden toilet brush?"
"If we didn't have these system-assigned NPC skins to blend in, we'd get executed in five seconds flat."
[Loken Did Not Betray the Luna Wolves]: "We still can't just stand by and watch him fall! We're Imperial loyalists! Imperial loyalists! Sure, the Horus Heresy doesn't destroy the Imperium in the lore, but who knows what kind of butterfly effect we might cause?"
[Thirty Years a Centaur Gold Ring]: "Calm down, bro. Look around you. We're on a ship belonging to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet, surrounded by over a hundred thousand Luna Wolves. Exactly how do you plan on stopping anything?"
[I Don't Eat Bear Biscuits]: "So we just do nothing? Just sit back and watch the Warmaster take a one-way trip to Chaos?"
Right at that moment, a new message popped up in the chat.
[I Want to be the Imperial Regent]: "Honestly, you're overthinking it. The Horus Heresy is completely inevitable."
His tone was calm, but it made the entire channel go quiet for a second.
"Use your heads for a minute and think about it."
"Why did we run into a warp storm in completely stable warp space?"
That single question silenced the channel entirely.
He was right.
Why would a perfectly routine warp transit suddenly run into a freak storm?
And why would that freak storm conveniently spit them out right next to a planet that was a dead ringer for Terra?
And why would that exact planet just happen to have a ruler calling himself the Emperor waiting for them?
[The Emperor's Will is Unstoppable]: "..."
[Loken Did Not Betray the Luna Wolves]: "..."
Everyone went dead silent.
They had been playing this game for a long time. They weren't clueless newbies anymore.
Warp storm.
Every Warhammer fan knew exactly what those words meant in this universe.
The Chaos Gods were pulling the strings.
They had intentionally diverted the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet here.
They wanted Horus to murder this fake Emperor.
They wanted him to get his first taste of killing a father figure.
It was designed to corrode his loyalty to the true Emperor. To drag him down into the embrace of Chaos.
Under the watchful eyes of the Dark Gods, caught in the unstoppable current of destiny... what could a bunch of mortal players—who weren't even Astartes yet—possibly do?
Arguing was pointless.
Stopping it was impossible.
They were full of hot blood and genuinely wanted to alter the tragic course of history, but after seeing the true, terrifying scale of the Imperium's power firsthand, they finally realized just how insignificant they were.
Changing history didn't just require power; it required time. Even the Emperor Himself was bound by those constraints, and even He couldn't stop this from happening.
It meant Horus... was absolutely destined to walk this path.
[I Want to be the Imperial Regent] continued typing:
"With the Four Gods watching, there's literally no point in arguing about whether we can save Horus or not."
"What we need to focus on is whether we can save Hastur Sejanus—the guy who actually keeps the Mournival balanced."
"If we can keep him alive, he can still play a role in the upcoming campaigns on Murder and the Interex."
"I feel bad for Loken, but we have to do what we can with the power we have."
Garviel Loken.
The man who would only join the Mournival after Sejanus's death.
The 10th Captain who would eventually stand up to Abaddon and sacrifice everything for the Imperium. The hero who would lead the loyalists in a doomed last stand against the traitors on Isstvan III.
But no one in the channel argued with [I Want to be the Imperial Regent].
Because Sejanus was just as critical.
He was the most grounded, honorable, level-headed, and rational member of the Mournival. He was the anchor that balanced out Abaddon's ambition, Aximand's zealotry, and Torgaddon's constant joking.
If he could survive this...
Maybe he could change the outcome of Murder, the Interex, and maybe even Davin...
[I Want to be the Imperial Regent] went on:
"I've already made contact with the top twenty players on the Imperial leaderboards offline."
"The Imperial Faction can't stay scattered anymore. We have to unite."
"After discussing it with [Defending the Imperium is My Sacred Duty] (Rank 1 on the Merit Board), [The Imperium's Purest Inquisitor] (Rank 1 on the Reputation Board), and [Worthy of Sanguinius's Blood] (Rank 2 on the Wealth Board)..."
"We've decided to establish our main Imperial player headquarters on Carollis Prime, out on the Eastern Fringe."
"Right now, [Defending the Imperium is My Sacred Duty] is over there, figuring out a way to seize administrative control of the planet."
"Once that's done, all Imperial players will be able to relocate there."
"We need to consolidate our forces. When the Horus Heresy finally breaks out, we need to be as strong as possible."
"We can't just keep standing around watching history happen without the power to change it."
"The Heresy is going to kick off way too soon. Trying to slowly infiltrate the Imperium's massive bureaucracy just doesn't make sense for us anymore. There's too much red tape, and the Imperium itself is completely fractured. High Lords, nobles, civilized worlds, the Mechanicus, Rogue Trader Dynasties... we don't have the time to play politics with all of them."
"[The Imperium's Purest Inquisitor] has already managed to establish contact with the Emperor Himself. Once he finishes his current questline, he's going to petition the Emperor for direct support."
"So our branch of Imperial players only has this one chance to act."
"If we can't save Sejanus, we pull out immediately and wait for the Horus Heresy to begin."
The channel went quiet for a few seconds.
[The Emperor's Will is Unstoppable] was the first to reply.
"I get it."
His tone sounded relaxed.
"Basically, we're just throwing a Hail Mary. If we succeed, it's a massive win. If we fail, we didn't really lose anything."
[Loken Did Not Betray the Luna Wolves] nodded in agreement.
"Exactly. We can respawn anyway, what do we have to be afraid of?"
[Thirty Years a Centaur Gold Ring]:
"I've been playing this game for a while now, and I realized a long time ago that this isn't just a normal game."
His voice carried a hint of awe.
"It's not just the insane time dilation. We can play for hours, yet we don't feel tired at all—if anything, I log off feeling completely energized."
"And the characters in this game... they're completely indistinguishable from real people."
"Sejanus, Loken, Abaddon... they aren't NPCs. They're living, breathing people."
"Regent, you're right. We just need to go for it."
"Every loyalist we can save is a win."
[I Don't Eat Bear Biscuits]:
"Hell yeah, let's go for it!"
"Us Imperial players can't just sit around and let the Crimson Dawn and the Chaos faction have all the fun!"
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