"Archmagos, did our sacred apparatus hit a Space Hulk or the Webway's bulwark?"
Eden felt a twinge of dread as soon as the Warp Shield TBM met resistance.
Even the "Hundred-Ton King" couldn't plow through literally everything.
There was no trace here of a Chaos domain.
The only things that could stall this sacred machine were a Space Hulk plated in high-tensile alloys, or a Webway barrier that blocked dimensional transit.
Worse, once the speed dropped below a critical threshold, he and the TBM would be randomly yeeted into the unknown.
"At present, no solid object has been detected."
The Archmagos's optics flickered, clearly crunching numbers at emergency speed. "The sacred apparatus may have encountered a spatial shear or some unknown, special obstruction.
I require more data to isolate and analyze the cause."
"We don't need to isolate anything…"
Eden lifted his gaze to the shifting void outside, his mood sinking.
A labyrinthine runic array had spread to shroud the heavens.
In the next instant, chain after chain of energy coalesced, winding around the Warp Shield TBM and locking it in place.
There was no doubt—they'd blundered into a grand sorcerous engine laid by a high Chaos entity, a matrix that sealed space itself.
He swallowed, nerves tightening. "Can we do an emergency throw-out back into realspace? We need it now!"
The warp-tainted power of the array was swelling by the moment; lingering here would only hike the risk.
"O Machine-Goddess.
The abhorrent array's drag has throttled nearly all motive force of the apparatus; even the most basic egress routine cannot execute…"
The Archmagos's verdict was grim.
With the hex-engine's corruption, the machine could not break free by its own power.
In other words, they were hard-locked in this pocket of the Warp.
"Good thing we have contingencies. Alert the Grand Psykers!"
Realizing that cogcraft wouldn't cut it, Eden summoned a cadre of high-order psykers.
They were part of the TBM's security detail in the first place, tasked with keeping the sacred machine safe and handling Warp-born emergencies.
The Warp could spit any number of psychic or sorcerous crises at you; high-order psykers were the specialists for exactly that.
Of course, Eden was himself a high-order psyker—one of the strongest humans alive.
Unfortunately, his psychic repertoire was all brute force; he knew next to nothing of the deeper arcanum, and he had no time to study.
Those sprawling arrays, the chants, the occult calculus—half higher math, half chemistry, half quantum weirdness—were frankly a big ask for someone holding a mid-tier academic rank from Zhongsi Academy.
Especially array design and drafting: assembling a mangled forest of quantum-level formulae into a single answer.
One tiny error, and the whole thing failed—or worse.
Eden had learned a basic truth:
Any high-tier discipline demands deep, methodical study.
With a Primarch-class intellect and learning curve he could learn it, sure.
But it would cost time and focus—wasteful for an Emperor.
Born psykers raised from childhood in Zhongsi Academy, the Star-Tongue Court, or noble houses, then refined by centuries of research, would beat him on technique nine times out of ten.
So for now…
Eden's go-to toolkit remained the Golden Fist, golden lightning, psychic barriers, and old-fashioned telekinesis—the big, filling staples.
Most days, punching still solved more problems.
Arraycraft? Total blank. At best he could eyeball an array's strength and broad effect.
The Observatory Chamber.
This detachable, armored shrine bled gentle sanctity at all hours, warding off the Warp's filth to create a safe pocket.
The Grand Psykers rested and meditated within.
"Arch-Mentors, I don't care how you do it—break that sorcerous array!"
Eden slapped the table and laid down a death order.
You don't raise troops for ten thousand days to waste them on drill. The Warp Shield TBM must not be lost; time to put pressure on the elite.
He had barely finished speaking when the hex-engine cinched again, making the TBM shudder.
Fresh reports poured in: the external armor was cracking further, there was no workable space for repairs, and even the revolving drill-crown had snapped a small segment.
"My baby sacred apparatus!"
Eden's heart bled.
He had just been bragging to the Emperor about building a self-assembled high-speed lane network to realize the grand dream of Empire.
If this thing really died, he wouldn't have the face to report back to the old man.
The blow to His Majesty might rival the time that pony's one psychic ping shattered His webway dream.
But worse news hit.
"What—are you saying you can't crack that rickety array outside?"
Eden leveled a hard stare at the Grand Psykers, tone sharpening. A firm dressing-down was in order.
It's just one array. How could they fold so fast? That wasn't the grit of the Savior's dominion!
But when he looked through the observatory to behold the array outside, where a prismatic raven kept resolving and shifting—
He understood.
The Grand Psykers likely couldn't break it.
Because it had been laid by the Grand Schemer, the Master of Fate, the Changer of Ways—Tzeentch Himself.
Eden drew a long breath and waved wearily. "Leave it. Don't try to crack it for now. Think of other options—see if hallowed psychic light works."
Things made by the Changer weren't for normal humans. Even a lesser god might choke on them.
No point throwing elite talent into a grinder; they could even trigger backlash.
He was stern, not sadistic—he wouldn't set impossible KPIs for his people.
Silence fell again in the Observatory Chamber—but it wasn't real silence. The Grand Psykers had shifted to mind-to-mind, trading plans for the crisis in pure thought.
The knowledge density they needed was far beyond simple speech.
Talking about this with a tongue was too primitive—and too slow.
A single term of art for some charm could be dozens of syllables long; you'd talk all day. Compressed mind-speech was essential.
One burst could cram the payload of dozens of books.
They didn't filter their traffic from the Savior. A storm-surge of abstruse data ricocheted through his skull.
Like force-feeding an entire library of complex functions into your brain—the buzzing was incredible.
Eden didn't linger. He stepped out for air.
His brows knit; anxiety clawed his chest—because he'd noticed something terrifying—
The Master of Fate had set him up.
The entity that once boxed the Emperor into tragedy upon the Golden Throne had now marked Eden, pre-scrying the TBM's route and laying a trap to net both the machine and himself.
It was unprecedented.
Everyone knew what it meant to be noticed by the Changer of Ways.
That being could marry prophecy to circumstance and slide targets into misery without them even noticing.
And you couldn't preempt Him.
Because Tzeentch cannot be defined. Any attempt to pin Him down in word, image, or thought would fail.
If it succeeded, it was only because He wished you to see it.
His being is a lie; He can't exist.
Or His existence is a paradox, so only one rightful sovereign can be: Tzeentch.
And… anything the being states carries both truth and lie.
So claimed an ancient proscribed codex on the Changer—truth or falsehood unknown; perhaps the codex itself was one of His lies.
Perhaps the passage didn't exist at all, and the reader merely saw an echo of some warp-taint.
Perhaps Eden had never read it; the memory was fake?
Maybe the present entrapment was itself an illusion; maybe the trap was the trap—to make him try to escape?
"Hiss… Don't tell me even the 'me' right now is fake?"
The more Eden thought, the colder his gut turned. He was going numb.
An all-knowing, Lovecraftian life-form plus unknown fate-distortion—a nightmare.
His realm had prospered these years because the Emperor shielded him from Tzeentch's influence; more critically, the Changer seemed unable to read Eden's fate.
Perhaps even wary of approaching him.
Now, it seemed the Changer had found a way to peek his destiny—and was turning up the heat.
The more he pondered, the worse it felt.
That was the horror of Tzeentch: the richer your knowledge, the keener your mind, the easier you tumble into His snare.
The more variables you weigh, the deeper the pit.
Thankfully Eden was not purely a scholar—a half-bruiser at heart.
He shut the spiral down and drew a conclusion: Tzeentch is a pain. Find a chance and break His beak.
The overthinking itself might be His nudge.
When you face the Lord of Mouths, the more you think, the messier it gets. Just charge.
Eden returned to the Observatory and jammed the brain-space full of unfamiliar knowledge—noise to keep him from drifting into suggestive thoughts.
That would only open doors for the enemy.
He waited with patience for the Grand Psykers to forge a plan that could save the situation.
…
The Crystal Labyrinth.
Palaces of impossible geometry wore pebbled-smooth planes.
Passages blinked into being and dissolved, merging and splitting at whim.
Deep within a passage lay a vast stair-bound chamber that fronted a secret library; there drifted a colossal mass of raven-like, iridescent matter.
One of Tzeentch's many shapes. Before Him hovered a spiderweb of fate-threads in a hundred colors.
Primarily red and black.
All of them tied to the Savior Primarch, the Imperial Emperor.
…?
The chromatic raven trembled, puzzled.
The Savior had slipped—for now—out of His mental shepherding. It changed nothing.
Tzeentch delicately plucked the Savior's threads, mostly the black, avoiding the red.
Red meant danger.
Those red lines touched the Savior's unknown past and higher dimensions; one brush would trigger savage backlash.
Last time, the Well of Eternity had nearly blown because a past-thread had been nudged; the Crystal Labyrinth almost detonated.
Later, the Changer's curiosity overrode caution.
At risk of ruin, He probed the scattered fragments and found only two letters—GW.
Just two letters of unknown meaning had grievously wounded Him.
He never dared touch them again.
But the Changer learned to sidestep the backlash while still working against the Savior:
Avoid any fate bound to the man's past. Choose only threads tied to the now, and build traps of destiny there.
The effect was weaker, but a means to wound remained.
He could not kill the Savior outright, but He could borrow other blades, luring him into crises beyond endurance—
And strip his power.
For instance, the ancient xenos relic that let the Savior influence the Warp—destroy it, and the foe would be gutted.
And then there was the horror they'd raised together, which would strike the killing blow.
The hunt had begun.
He would guide the Savior step by step into doom.
Tzeentch signaled the other three Dark Gods, passing intel and the plan.
He broadcast across the Warp to draw more predators to the chase.
Threads converged to a single navel of fate, where a phantom of the Savior, a spectral starmap, and a black, dreadful shadow hung.
There, in a destined ground, they'd wage the war of fate.
…
The Realm of Khorne, the Brass Citadel.
The halls whose roof had once been torn asunder stood whole again; molten brass filled the gaps, though scars remained.
Upon the Brass Throne—
Khorne's blood-shadow still smoldered with rage; flame-wrath rolled, and the host of daemons quaked.
The throng had thinned again. Many Greater Daemons of Khorne were punished, hung upside-down upon the brass ramparts, to keep An'ggrath the Unbound company.
Those left bore scars cut to the bone—
Marks of the blood-whip.
Only one had been spared: the Exalted Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha.
With invincible valor he had repelled the Daemon-Eater's engines of war, salvaging the Blood God's honor and earning His favor.
Khorne loves mighty warriors—daemon, man, or otherwise—and rewards courage with due tribute.
Ka'Bandha stood at the fore, arms folded. No one else stood near.
He took up a swath of ground alone.
"The Blood God isn't as untouchable as I thought.
Perhaps when I cut down the Savior, I'll seize a chance to challenge the Highest Himself."
He stared up at the Brass Throne and muttered. The last battle had granted him more slaughter-authority—
He had even drunk deep of the Blood God's own awe, and his pride had swollen.
The blood-shadow looked down on Ka'Bandha's defiant eyes and was pleased. He favored warriors who feared nothing—
Even His own dread.
Had Skarbrand challenged Him openly instead of striking from behind, exile might not have been his fate.
The Blood God mustered a greater horde and placed Ka'Bandha in command.
Then He issued an order:
Lead the host to a destined ground and destroy the Savior's army.
That ground was—the Vostonia Pan-Sector.
Ka'Bandha accepted at once. He knew the one who had floored him not long ago would also head there in search of the Savior.
He would not interfere with their duel.
He would wait for the outcome, then take the victor's head.
…
Warp Shield TBM.
Observatory Chamber.
The Grand Psykers had worked up several feasible approaches, each with its own risks, and laid them before the Savior for a final call.
They wrote them on parchment to reduce interference.
Eden grabbed one at random—but stopped before he opened it.
"I can't read these.
If the Big Raven is drafting my destiny, then the instant I read, I expose the variables.
He'll know.
And my thinking will be nudged along His rails, hardening the fate He wants."
The Changer wasn't truly omniscient. If He had been, the Emperor wouldn't have blown His head off that day.
He was "only" calculating outcomes off the vectors and warp-flows.
Eden thought for a moment, tossed the parchment back, and chose pure bull-rush.
He pinged the Archmagos with a terse order.
Soon, a snot-nosed, empty-eyed greenskin in blue-painted armor was frog-marched into the chamber, howling.
This was reportedly the thickest and most reckless ork aboard the TBM—the hound of the Deathskulls, as it were.
If not for the Waaagh! and the Warboss's glare keeping him in line, he'd have dismantled half the ship by now.
Most importantly—he was painted blue. Blue is luckiest.
"You. Pick one."
Eden pointed at the heap of parchments and gave the dolt a simple command.
Nothing complicated—no point confusing him.
The ork blinked, grabbed a sheet—then took a bite.
Like it was a snack.
"By the Throne!"
A quick-witted Grand Psyker snatched the parchment back, but not before a tooth had notched a tasty chunk.
Eden nodded in satisfaction.
He didn't even look. "Good. Execute this one."
"But this plan is incomplete; it's been—"
"Then execute the incomplete one. Don't tell me anything."
The Savior gave his final order and left the chamber.
He didn't want to know anything more.
The dum-dum Deathskull's luck, plus Eden's patented "I reckon" factor, ought to add enough noise.
…
In the Crystal Labyrinth—
A certain Big Raven was flapping in a flurry, frantically retiming fate-threads that had slipped off the schedule, patching a plan on the brink.
Fortunately, all was still within plan.
…
Not long after—
Eden punched out of the Warp back into realspace.
Drifting in the endless dark, he didn't know how he'd gotten out—and didn't need to.
The Grand Psykers and the orks had got it done.
He felt no joy.
The Warp Shield TBM was still inside the hex-engine. Its roots were driven into realspace, and it kept tightening, crushing the frame.
If he couldn't solve the array's anchorage in realspace, he couldn't fish his sacred machine out.
The good news: he had pinned the array's real location—Vostonia. The array was rooted there.
In Eden's foresight, Vostonia was a patch of black—that was a kind of prescience.
By constantly cultivating an image of omniscience and omnipotence and bathing in the adoration of the masses, he'd earned a sliver of the Warp's return.
A little prevision.
If the array was in Vostonia—the pre-booked site of the grand decisive battle—maybe that was good.
He could settle everything at once.
Of course, that doubled the risk. He had no idea how many enemies were waiting.
Half a day later—
Whoom—
A colossal warship slammed out of the Warp, blazing like a golden, holy backdrop in the void.
Dreamweaver.
Eden boarded immediately and used the vox to fire warnings to Roboute Guilliman and Jaghatai Khan.
Rendezvous with him first, then enter the Vostonia Pan-Sector—otherwise the enemy would pocket them and destroy them in detail.
His foresight said the number of Chaos foes would beggar belief.
He had to mass strength or lose the war in a single stroke.
——
The Warp.
The Forests of Caliban.
"Knights, we will arrive shortly.
We will fortify there and crush the foe, awaiting the Savior's coming."
The First, the Lion, strode like a titan.
Behind him marched a thicket of cold, many-armed engines that breathed poisonous, murderous intent.
Anyone could feel this forbidden army's horror. It could scour fortified worlds and forge-planets alike.
The Lion looked toward a glimmer nestled in the quiet forest and allowed himself a thin smile.
They had spent many days in this wood. By following his own nature, he had finally found the right way.
That, most likely, was the road to Vostonia.
He led his bloodline sons and the Pre-Imperial Men of Iron Extinction War-Automata onto the path…
(End of Chapter)
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