My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 472: Above Cadia
Above Cadia.
One thousand nine hundred and fifty-tree. Argel Tal muttered to himself. Demonic blood and shredded flesh dripped from his warped crimson claws as he stared numbly at the next target—a bloated daemon with its entrails hanging exposed was charging toward him.
The Blessed Son had long since learned how to deal with creatures like these.
He lowered his body and lunged forward violently. The spikes on his shoulder guard punched into the daemon's swollen belly, his entire body plunging into a sea of pus and flesh. He heard the daemon screaming outside, and then Argel Tal drove upward, spreading his arms and claws wide—
Slash!
He burst out from the daemon's corpse, foul-smelling slime raining everywhere. Argel Tal showed no emotion. He strode forward and crushed the screaming daemon's skull beneath his feet, then continued onward in search of the next target.
One thousand nine hundred and fifty-four.
Argel Tal could feel what seemed like endless power surging through his body. The source of that power was the Warp, and he understood this with perfect clarity.
By now, Argel Tal had long ceased to resemble either man or beast. He had merged with the daemon Raum, becoming something inhuman. He had grown into his own crimson armor, while daemonic scales spread across his flesh.
But the force sustaining him was not merely the gift bestowed by Raum.
The true source of that strength was their Primarch—
Lorgar.
Lorgar stood there, amidst billions of corpses, at the place where the Lord of Underworld had fallen. Storm clouds churned and roared behind the Primarch.
And yet the Primarch himself remained unmoving.
His gray armor was shrouded in ominous clouds of Chaos. Profane cracks crawled across every inch of his plate, while an eight-pointed star had been crudely painted over his breastplate in black blood, concealing the glory it once bore.
The Primarch's eyes were closed, his expression serene and compassionate. Golden threads emerged from his eyes and lips, densely stitching them shut.
Tears of radiant gold overflowed from those sealed eyes.
Behind his head burned a massive golden halo lined with thorns.
But the most disturbing thing about the Primarch was not any of this—
Lorgar's head floated silently above his neck.
Only a few finger-widths separated the smooth severed surface of the neck from the hovering head. Golden liquid slowly dripped from the cross-section of the head, splashing onto the severed neck below with a sizzling, corrosive hiss before dimming and flowing over the edge of the neck beneath.
Like candle wax dripping from a burning flame.
And each drop caused the wicked light surrounding the Primarch's body to fade ever so slightly.
Yet at the same time, black spikes extended upward from the neck below, slowly reaching toward the silent, sightless head.
—At this moment, Lorgar no longer resembled a man.
Rather, he seemed like something being controlled by the quietly floating head above him.
At the moment of the Lord of Underworld's fall, the Primarch of the Word Bearers had driven his staff through his own throat, offering himself as a sacrifice to the Emperor.
But at that time, part of Lorgar still belonged to Chaos. The faith to which he had devoted himself remained impure.
Thus, Lorgar's atonement was far from over.
He still had to wage war against the Chaos occupying his body. As the one who had broken the deadlock, as the one who had ultimately ruined the plans of the Four Gods, their curse upon him would never cease.
At this moment, Aurelian… are you in pain?
At this moment, Aurelian… do you still possess a self?
Catching sight of the Primarch from the corner of his eye, Argel Tal swallowed uneasily. No matter how many times he looked, he could never grow accustomed to what his father had become.
Lorgar neither looked nor spoke. For a fleeting instant, Argel Tal even wondered whether his father still retained any independent will at all.
He merely stood there, battling against the surging tides of daemons.
Beside Lorgar stood his sons, likewise transformed beyond recognition. Not only Argel Tal—several other Word Bearers had also survived. They were the fortunate few preserved by their Primarch, by the Emperor, and by the Warp itself.
Like Argel Tal, they had all been possessed by daemons. They were becoming inhuman, sprouting scales, tails, and wings. Yet at the same time, they had gained strength—the power necessary to stand here.
Perhaps they themselves were the reward earned through the Primarch's sacrifice.
In that final moment, Lorgar sacrificed himself, demanding in exchange from the Emperor the survival of the "Deceased," and the continued existence of mankind.
And now they stood here, fighting to preserve the life of the "Deceased."
They guarded the boundary between the "Realm That Can Be Understood" and the "Realm of Chaotic Ignorance."
Before the defensive line of the Word Bearers stretched an endless tide of daemons.
Behind them, however, lay a sight beyond the limits of the human mind to comprehend.
Centered upon the place where the "Deceased" had fallen, there existed a region upon the wastelands of Cadia where nothing—save the "Deceased" himself and that arrow of the Four Gods—could remain for long, whether concept or manifested entity.
Space did not exist there.
Time did not exist there.
Right and wrong did not exist there.
Everything had been shattered apart by violent opposing forces. Things flickered into existence for but a brief instant before being erased once more. Then, with the next flash, perhaps they would appear again—recreated anew.
And amid that boundless chaos, if one narrowed one's eyes and gazed into the distance, in that fleeting moment when consciousness blurred, perhaps one might glimpse a kneeling figure.
A vague spear-like shaft pierced through that figure's back.
Black fractures spread outward in every direction, as though white paper had been brutally torn apart.
From time to time, faint motes of pale white light drifted around the figure before abruptly vanishing again.
Those were the souls that had willingly embraced eternal oblivion, calling out to his name.
Far away, they existed there only as a tiny point on the horizon.
Behind Lorgar and the Word Bearers lay such a landscape.
And it was upon the boundary of this landscape that Argel Tal stood, battling the endless tide of daemons.
Sometimes—for example, after being drenched in filth vomited by a Great Unclean One, or splattered by the fluids of a Slaaneshi daemonette—Argel Tal would drift into a dazed thought:
Were they truly protecting the life of the "Deceased"?
Could the endless daemonic tide surging toward them really step into the existence behind them… and affect the "Deceased" at all?
He did not know.
But since his father fought—since he led them personally against the tide of daemons—then Argel Tal had nothing to doubt, and nothing to hesitate over.
Perhaps… Argel Tal thought that both sides were merely waiting for another who could break the deadlock. They clung desperately to this land only to seize the initiative.
Or perhaps… Argel Tal's gaze once more drifted toward the Primarch, who swung his staff and sent a daemon flying. As always, the sight was profoundly disturbing: Lorgar's floating head shining with golden radiance, contrasted against the Primarch's profane and brutalized body.
Or perhaps the Primarch simply wished for them to survive.
Simply wished for his son to continue existing.
And so, he came.
But regardless of why the Primarch had come, or why he fought, his most loyal son would remain faithfully at his side and slaughter in his name.
Argel Tal let out a low growl and charged forward once more.
One thousand nine hundred and fifty-five.
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