"That is… the relic artefact, the Maugetar Stone?!"
The instant Eden sensed that rule-like force, he realised exactly what it was.
His heart jolted. Under the threat, his body reacted on instinct—an emergency stress response.
That peculiar relic artefact could pose a tremendous danger to him.
Yet beneath the tension, a spark of excitement flickered.
He finally had a chance to obtain the relic artefact he'd coveted for so long.
Relic artefacts in the galaxy were absurdly powerful. Some of the most extreme, taboo ones could even potentially kill an existence like the Emperor.
Fulgrim craved Eden's authority.
Eden, meanwhile, coveted Fulgrim's relic-artefact "assets," his buried treasure, his coffin-fund.
Now it came down to who was more skilled.
Eden thought of something, and his focus snapped onto Fulgrim.
That perverted primarch—Daemon Prince—had deceived plenty of primarchs and high-tier beings.
A textbook ambusher.
Not to be underestimated.
Whoosh—
Fulgrim was even faster.
He seized the moment while everyone was stunned. Using his flesh-and-pleasure artefact cloak to wrap himself, he became a cloud of pink mist and vanished from where he stood.
He was thrilled beyond measure.
"For this chance… I endured far too long…"
Ever since he realised the Chaos Gods' plan to have the mirage slaughter the Saviour had failed, he knew Eden would inevitably come to this duelling arena.
So he held on. He did not activate the Maugetar Stone array against Roboute, who had been pounding him into the ground.
All that endurance was for this moment.
Fulgrim had been waiting for an opening.
An opening to wash away disgrace and reclaim every shred of glory.
At last, the Saviour stepped into the trap. The timing was perfect, and his trap had never failed.
Fulgrim's figure reappeared—upon the ruins of the throne—looking down at the Saviour and the Ultramarines primarch.
In that instant, he looked like a king about to ascend the seat of power, as though the humiliation of being beaten senseless had never happened.
He stared at the Saviour's nearly perfect face and body, at the faintly radiating authority of pleasure.
Jealousy and hatred surged inside him—hatred that it wasn't his.
Why wasn't he the brightest, most dazzling existence in the galaxy?!
But in the next breath, he buried that jealousy and hatred deep.
Those were pitiful emotions reserved for losers.
Soon, everything the Saviour had—pleasure authority included—would be his.
The Saviour could never withstand the might of a relic artefact.
Just as he had once used the Maugetar Stone to strip Perturabo's authority essence—only this time the array was far larger.
He would become the most perfect, most captivating, most worshipped existence in the galaxy!
Fulgrim assumed a refined, courtly manner and offered a slight bow to the other beings in the duelling arena.
His voice was so elegant it sounded like opera.
"Dear audience, look well. This is the stage I have built. The grand performance has only just begun—"
As he spoke, he slowly spread his hands and lifted his gaze to the sky.
The previously empty heavens bloomed with jewel after jewel.
A full million of them.
They shared a similar structure, wrapped in strange energies and assembled into a vast array. At the centre, linked to them all, was a black-and-yellow artefact construction emitting an uncanny gleam—the Maugetar Stone.
The array targeting the Saviour was already active.
With that array behind him, Fulgrim's presence grew even more imposing.
He fixed on the Saviour, greed flashing through his eyes.
"Hypocrite. On this stage, I am the only protagonist. You will take your final bow in an ugly posture—stripped of all power—ending beneath the audience's laughter.
"And you, Roboute. As a mere supporting role, your authority-power is not bad either. You are qualified to be—"
"What is that guy babbling about?" Eden cut him off, his face full of disdain. "I hate clowns like this the most—people who start popping champagne the second they get the upper hand."
"Brother, you're right," Guilliman said as he came to Eden's side, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him as they faced Fulgrim together. "He really does look like a clown."
He would fight alongside his brother and crush that traitor completely.
Bang!
Eden didn't waste words. He drove off the ground and vaulted toward the shattered throne where Fulgrim stood.
Guilliman followed instantly.
But in the next moment, warp-tainted light flared, and both of them were rebounded by the barrier formed from the array.
"I suspect you are the true clowns," Fulgrim sneered as he watched the Saviour and the Ultramarines primarch blocked by the barrier. "This is my stage. The feast has begun. As the protagonist, I cannot fail!"
In the Warp, the Saviour truly was strong.
But this was the galaxy—material reality—where Warp power was greatly suppressed.
And Fulgrim possessed a relic artefact.
It was something no primarch could resist—perhaps not even that false Emperor.
Through the relic artefact, combined with the gods' power, and under the pressure of reality itself, he could siphon the Saviour's and the Ultramarines primarch's essence.
He would ascend to a higher tier and touch that mysterious, intoxicating Stairway to Godhood.
He would stand closer to that stairway than that worthless Vashtorr ever could.
And at that point, wouldn't the Prince of Pleasure open the divine couch for him?!
That being of pleasure could not refuse someone so strong—someone who could help win even more authority-power.
"I will be pleasure's consort… the Phoenix King…"
Fulgrim revelled in the fantasy, then lifted a finger in a theatrical king's gesture.
"Two lowly challengers. Your struggles are pathetic. All blasphemy will be punished.
"As the victor, I strip you of everything!"
The words fell, and the Maugetar Stone array—woven with the power of two true Warp gods—began to roar at full speed. Warp-tainted energy surged through the jewel-formed formation like a raging sea.
Then two hateful beams of yellow-black light appeared, instantly enveloping the Saviour and the Ultramarines primarch.
That dreadful, rule-like suction erupted.
In an instant, Eden and Guilliman were bound by the Maugetar Stone's power. They felt their Warp-essence authority shuddering violently.
Their authority-power began to be absorbed by the beams, carried along some special channel into Fulgrim's body.
"Ah… what delicious power." Fulgrim raised both hands high, welcoming that enchanting force. His body twisted into a higher degree of mutation. "A new king is born. Your power is enough to grant me the qualification to touch the realm of true gods!"
He became taller, more perfect. Every scale on his daemonic body glittered with vile light, his life stepping toward an entirely different level.
"No wonder it's you, hypocrite. Your authority-power is magnificent—ten times, a hundred times better than Perturabo's!"
The surviving Chaos Daemons in the duelling arena saw Fulgrim suppress the Saviour and the Ultramarines primarch by himself, and the arena immediately erupted in ecstatic cheers.
They offered reverence to this powerful, cunning Daemon Prince.
"Hiss… this thing is even nastier than I imagined!"
Eden couldn't move. He watched his authority essence draining away, and it wasn't just him—Guilliman was the same.
His scalp tingled.
"So the galaxy's relic-artefact technology really can influence the Warp… and the extent is far greater than expected!"
As the Saviour's domain pushed deeper into Warp research, higher scholars had already found that the material world and the Warp influenced each other.
That meant real technology could, on some level, affect—or even remodel—the Warp.
The Old Ones' Webway technology was proof: its barrier was something even the Chaos Gods struggled to breach.
And the Necrons of that same era were even more direct.
They could use astonishing technology to create regions of space that cut off the Warp—spanning vast swathes of star systems.
Rumour held that the strange, silent shadowed region not only severed the Warp, but even weakened the souls of reality—dulling the will of humans and other living beings.
The Imperium now called that region ruled by the Silent King the Pariah Nexus, one of the most dangerous zones in the galaxy.
Those beings who once defeated the Old Ones posed a threat to humanity in the galaxy no less dire than the Chaos Gods.
More thoughts flashed through Eden's mind.
The raw power of the Maugetar Stone relic artefact had proven the theory: the galaxy and the Warp truly did influence one another.
And it further proved that special technology could even affect authority-power itself.
Eden's excitement rose.
"Then Warp authority isn't purely mystical nonsense. It's an energy—or a phenomenon—that can be studied.
"Or rather… the Warp itself is a region created by higher-dimensional existences, the way the Necrons created the Pariah Nexus.
"And authority-power is the rules inside that system, the code—maybe even the Stairway to Godhood itself is an interface that grants some kind of backdoor access.
"It's just that life in the galaxy and the Warp can't comprehend it—like turkeys on a farm can't understand why food falls from the sky at 11 o'clock, and end up treating it like the law of some god."
It was only a hypothesis.
But it was unquestionably a thrilling, monumental discovery.
"If I obtain the Maugetar Stone, and combine it with Old Ones and Necron technology, I may be able to decipher its secrets and gain far more knowledge related to Warp authority!"
Eden's thoughts raced.
Right now, the most important thing was to break free of this array trap and seize the Maugetar Stone.
He finished every calculation in milliseconds, then struggled with all his strength.
If Perturabo had once forced his way out with brute power, then Eden might also have a chance to do the same.
"This is bad… I don't think I can solve it myself…"
As he struggled, Eden discovered the more force he used, the tighter the restraint became, as though all effort was meaningless.
Fulgrim mocked him freely.
"Hypocrite, stop wasting your strength. I will not stumble over the same thing twice."
Last time, Perturabo and his sons had nearly destroyed the Maugetar Stone with their resistance.
So Fulgrim reinforced and optimised the trap.
This was not a restraint that could be broken by anything in the material world.
Fulgrim savoured the sight of the Saviour and the Ultramarines primarch struggling as he absorbed their authority-power.
He tasted a pleasure of victory unlike anything before—more worth savouring than the moment of ascending into daemonhood.
"So you like stealing authority, do you? Then I'll feed you something good." Eden, realising the array was tied to the entire Oleincis and he couldn't break free by his own strength, stopped wasting effort.
He immediately contacted the Emperor.
"Old man, give me some holy authority. The more, the better!"
This was one of his planned counters against the Maugetar Stone array—he just didn't know whether it would work.
The Emperor received the message and grew even happier.
He replied with a Mechanicus-styled sticker that simply read: "OK."
Then, like a clearance sale of apocalyptic proportions, the Sacred Sun hurled out an enormous quantity of holy authority, as if worried it still wouldn't be enough.
Opportunities to shed authority-power like this were rare—especially when the Hope Sun's carrying capacity was nearing its limit, making it impossible to transfer more into Eden directly.
But now the Maugetar Stone was stripping and transferring the Hope Sun's authority.
Perfect.
Holy authority could be routed through the same mechanism to relieve pressure.
"That's enough, that's enough!"
Through the Hope Sun, Eden saw the scene and went numb.
This was so much holy authority it might actually burst him to death.
There was no choice. The Hope Sun was carrying too many streams of faith and authority—especially after he'd made a fortune in the mirage.
But the Emperor had it worse.
In the Warp, the old man was nearing invincibility, his authority-power still growing nonstop, always at risk of swelling until it crushed his consciousness and devoured him entirely.
Perhaps invincibility was its own kind of suffering—until even moving became difficult.
Eden moved instantly. He used devouring authority to absorb the Sacred Sun's power, and the Hope Sun puffed up again.
Fortunately, that power was swiftly pulled into the Maugetar Stone array, then carried along the special channel into another lifeform.
"Ah… I see the road to true godhood…"
Fulgrim was savouring the massive influx of authority. With the essence of four primarchs within him, he vaguely perceived the Stairway to Godhood.
It was exquisite beyond description, beyond language—its shape and the feeling it evoked.
As though it were truth itself.
???
In the next moment, the Fallen Phoenician sensed danger.
A power of extreme, lethal magnitude was approaching.
"Fa… Father?!"
"No!"
He screamed in panic, trying to halt the array's operation and stop everything.
But before he could react, the channel formed by the Maugetar Stone array delivered the Sacred Sun's authority-power directly into his body.
Holy fire and Chaos evil energy reacted violently.
Fulgrim ignited.
His scream became even more agonised, like a serpent-man thrown onto a blazing grill.
Then he collapsed, smashing into the throne ruins, his fate unknown.
Eden was still bound by the array.
He looked at the charred Fulgrim and sighed with feeling.
"The Emperor's authority is still way too intense. That guy can't handle it at all.
"I wonder if he's dead."
"Unfortunately, I'm not dead. Disappointed?" Fulgrim's shrill laughter rang out from the ruins.
A charred, serpentine body slowly rose.
He looked weak, yet brimming with more vitality, his strength slowly recovering.
He swayed forward, closing in.
His face was even more vicious.
"This stage has not yet collapsed. As the protagonist, I will naturally win the final victory.
"Perhaps I should thank your peculiar authority—because it let me withstand and contain the false Emperor's power.
"Once I absorb your essence completely, I will become unprecedentedly powerful. From this day forward, nothing will be able to restrain me!"
Fulgrim's ambition expanded explosively.
The Saviour's gentle, defensive, absurdly resilient authority had enabled him to endure the burning of holy fire.
He had even faintly absorbed a trace of holy power.
Only now did he understand how powerful and special the Saviour's authority truly was—enough to rival the gods!
"Damn it…"
Guilliman struggled hard. Seeing this, he felt even more despair.
They had lost the means to suppress that traitor, and their Warp essence continued to drain away.
But the Ultramarines primarch quickly noticed something.
The Saviour remained calm—no panic, no anxiety.
"Too bad," Eden smacked his lips, utterly unconcerned by Fulgrim's approach. "You won't get that chance."
Fulgrim sneered, as though he had seen through Eden's act.
"Hypocrite, your bluster is meaningless.
"This array contains the gods' power, and it is linked to Oleincis itself.
"You two cannot possibly break free—unless you possess strength great enough to flip the planet's crust."
"Who said there are only two of us?" Eden smiled.
While Fulgrim had been down, Eden had completed the final reversal operation.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]