The mirage within the vortex turbulence did not last long before gradually fading away, only to begin projecting scenes from other regions of the Warp.
That was a common phenomenon in turbulent zones. Time and space were in complete disorder there, and many nodes connected to other areas.
Back then, under the influence of sorcery, Guilliman had the bad luck to step on one such node and end up stranded in this region.
Before long, the crimson sunlight dimmed somewhat, and the temperature of this death world began to fall.
The air no longer shimmered with rising heat.
Although the death world was still bright, no different from daytime on other planets, for this world it already counted as night.
That brief drop in temperature gave many forms of life a moment to breathe.
From distant regions beyond the tent came faint, eerie howls. Many Chaos beasts had begun emerging to hunt.
But no Chaos life dared come near this area, because something terrifying lived here.
A powerful warrior from the material galaxy.
"Did I miss something just now?"
Guilliman stepped out of the tent and frowned slightly as he looked toward the vortex turbulence in the void.
It looked no different than usual, yet he still vaguely sensed that something was off.
"Perhaps it was just my imagination."
The Ultramar Primarch stared at it in a half-dazed way, but discovered nothing.
In truth, as a psyker with all the Warp instincts of an idiot tourist, he could not really sense much beyond what he could see with his own eyes.
That was also one of the reasons he had survived so long in this turbulent Warp region without being too badly affected.
As for the sounds of flesh being torn apart and the horrific howling in the distance, Guilliman was not worried in the slightest.
Through endless slaughter, he had proven that he was the most terrifying creature in this region. No Chaos being dared approach anymore.
Beneath that hide robe was a body of dense muscle and countless scars.
Over these years, Guilliman had gone through several times more battles than he had in the previous ten thousand years.
He had long since become far stronger.
There was a savage aura about him now, nothing like the former Lord of Ultramar and Imperial Regent who once looked refined and composed.
After watching for a moment, Guilliman stopped paying attention. He had more important things to do.
"I wonder whether those crops survived."
The Primarch grabbed the bone hoe beside the tent and hurried toward the nearby patch of crops.
He wanted to check whether the crop he had planted not long ago had survived. It was a plant similar to wheat that he had found in a ruined area.
Fortunately, though the red wheat looked wilted, it had not been scorched to death by the intense heat.
Life on this death world was even tougher than he had imagined.
Seeing that, Guilliman could not help smiling. Then he went into the field and started loosening the soil with cheerful determination, clearly enjoying himself.
He had always looked forward to the day when he could lay down his burdens, stop worrying about endless governance and war, and return to Macragge to farm a little.
To rest and recover.
Of course, Guilliman only liked the joy of building things, developing resources, agriculture, industry, and so on, little by little. He needed to be doing something.
In that respect, he felt he had something in common with Brother Eden.
After finishing his work in the field, Guilliman went to a bare open space covered in bones. There were a number of unusual psychic materials and rune-patterns laid out there.
That was the altar area where he tested sorcerous ritual arrays, built little by little from fragments of memory, and it had taken him quite a bit of effort.
A Primarch's mind and intelligence allowed him to learn knowledge from any field. The only question was whether he wanted to.
As long as they invested the time and effort, Primarchs could become top-tier practitioners, even masters, in nearly any discipline.
Guilliman climbed onto a platform of piled bones and began tinkering with the occult patterns set into it.
"Mercury, sulfur, bone ash... yes, this should be right. I think my Librarians built their sorcerous communication arrays like this?"
He tried hard to reconstruct half-remembered fragments from his mind, his brow tightly furrowed, clearly struggling.
The Ultramar Primarch, the Lord of Ultramar, was starting to regret not having studied more sorcery back then.
Unfortunately, he simply had no real talent for it.
Every chant and every occult symbol looked maddeningly obscure to him, and he could not get much feel for any of it.
Guilliman had no choice but to piece together the ritual array bit by bit from memory.
Pure brute force.
Fortunately, his memory was extraordinary. Relying on the fragmentary images and sounds in his mind, he had still managed to reproduce the sorcerous array he wanted.
It could transmit information across a great distance.
As for teleportation ritual arrays, he had tried those several times too, but they were far too dangerous and had nearly drawn the Chaos Gods to him.
"Let's hope this works."
Guilliman took a deep breath. His eyes suddenly turned gray-white, and psychic arcs crackled faintly over his body.
Those arcs spread and lit up the communication ritual array, sending the encoded message out into the void.
That was his goal. As long as the distress signal reached the Imperium, he could be rescued.
And when that happened, Brother Eden would definitely come looking for him!
Even after the ritual array lit up, Guilliman did not relax.
The vortex turbulence in this region was in constant flux and had a huge effect on psychic energy. It could even completely alter the structure of a ritual array.
He had to remain vigilant at all times.
Rumble.
Yet before he could react, the very thing he feared most happened. The void suddenly shook and tore open a gap.
"How is that possible? That is... a ship navigating through the Warp?!"
Guilliman looked up.
A pitch-black vessel emerged from the breach, skimmed along the atmosphere of this death world, and seemed to crash somewhere on the far side of the planet.
That was an extremely bizarre sight. He had just seen a ship capable of sailing through a region of Warp turbulence.
Under normal circumstances, even a Gloriana-class vessel would have been torn apart by that kind of violent current.
A flash of excitement rose in his heart.
"Does that mean I could return to the Imperium using that ship?!"
But in the very next moment, the ritual array, affected by the disturbance in the void, erupted with violent light. A pale blue beam shot into the sky.
It twisted into a vortex.
The circuitry of the ritual array had already changed. It had even been corrupted into something unknown, and no one could say what effect it would produce now.
Guilliman hurriedly tried to stop the array, but everything had already slipped beyond the control of this Warp idiot.
Even stranger, the vortex of light was further corrupted and seized, turning into an abominable red-and-yellow color.
A massive figure began to take shape, radiating overwhelming pressure, as though it could blot out the sky itself.
"This is bad!"
The moment Guilliman saw it, his heart clenched, and he immediately adopted a fighting stance.
He knew that his ritual array had attracted some unknown Warp being.
In his field of vision, a portal had formed at the center of the ritual array.
And that enormous figure was slowly condensing, as though descending into this region in the form of a Warp entity.
Then a figure in golden armor stepped onto the crimson earth, emerging from the temporary teleportation array.
"Hah. I have no idea which idiot was messing around with a sorcerous array here, but they really did me a huge favor."
Eden stepped out of the array, looking rather pleased.
Whether in the galaxy or the Warp, any occult symbol or sorcerous array was dangerous.
That kind of Warp-rite knowledge could easily be coveted by some terrible Warp entity, corrupted for its own use, and turned into a disaster.
And he, the Savior, the King of Hell, was among the most terrifying entities in the Warp. He could corrupt any psychic act, ritual, or worship activity that fell within his sight.
Not long ago, while chasing the Eternal Soul, Eden had found some idiot Chaos sorcerer with zero defenses and even less common sense.
So he had given the man a little help, then used that sorcerous array to descend into this world and pursue the Eternal Soul more quickly.
"What kind of barbarian is this?"
The moment Eden arrived, he saw a filthy savage from the Warp lunging at him and very nearly smashed him with a golden fist.
At the same time, the moment Guilliman saw that familiar figure, his eyes immediately turned wet.
After so many years, rescue had finally come, and the one who came was one of his own brothers.
Brotherly love was moving beyond words.
"Brother Eden!"
The Ultramar Primarch, overcome with emotion, lunged toward him.
"Guilliman?"
Sensing that this wild man before him was his long-lost brother, Eden hurriedly checked his strike and instead embraced him.
"Brother, you finally came. I always believed you would come looking for me!"
Guilliman released the Savior and looked at him with overwhelming emotion.
This was no less moving than the moment he had returned and seen Father again.
The Savior had actually braved such danger to come into this region of Warp turbulence to find him. That was what a true brother was. At this point, he might as well have been a second father!
???
Eden froze for a moment, then immediately caught on and gave his good brother another fierce hug.
"That's right. I've searched for you for so long!"
He had not actually come here looking for Guilliman, but since he had run into him halfway through, rounding up, it still counted.
The brotherly reunion scene had to happen, at least enough not to wound his good brother's feelings.
Besides, to be fair, he really had kept search parties out for years trying to locate Guilliman.
Who would have thought the man had ended up lost in a turbulence zone?
If they had not happened to run into each other this time, then with Guilliman being as hopelessly Warp-dumb as he was, who knew how many years it would have taken him to get back.
"By the way, Brother, did you just see a black human vessel? I spotted it on the way here.
"A relic of humanity that precious can't be allowed to slip away."
Eden did not linger too long on the reunion and quickly got to the point.
He had not forgotten that the purpose of this trip was the Eternal Soul, which was directly tied to whether the old Emperor got launched into the sky by the exploding golden toilet.
"Yes, I saw that ship. It probably landed on the other side of this death world."
Guilliman answered truthfully.
"Then that settles it. Come on, let's go take that ship!"
Eden was delighted. The Eternal Soul should not be able to leave this turbulence zone easily.
And now that he had an extra helper, they might be able to secure it faster.
After learning the situation, Guilliman looked back once at his little tent and his fields.
He had lived here for so long that he had grown attached to them.
Of course, that was all he gave them, one glance. Then he followed Brother Savior toward the other side of the death world.
He knew he still carried responsibilities. There were greater things he needed to do. Father, humanity, and his other brothers all still needed him.
Along the way, Guilliman learned from Brother Savior what had happened to the Imperium over the years.
Brother Eden had defeated daemonized Angron. The Vostonia war had ended long ago, and even the Vigilant Star war zone had been taken.
Over these years, under Brother Eden's leadership, the new Imperium had completed several large-scale campaigns and recovered vast swathes of lost territory.
The whole thing was thriving. The situation was excellent across the board.
Even Little Angron, copied from a remnant of Angron's soul, had grown up strong and become one of the Imperium's pillars.
"So much has happened in the Imperium while I was gone..."
Guilliman felt a little awkward.
He was starting to suspect that the Imperium seemed to function just fine without him.
"Brother, thank goodness you're back. We may be facing a major war soon."
Sensing his good brother's mood, Eden comforted him.
"With us brothers fighting together, we'll definitely solve it. We'll return and save the Imperium from disaster!"
Hearing that, Guilliman nodded solemnly.
They would certainly overcome every obstacle and return in time to stop Chaos's scheme against the Imperium.
Before long, Eden and Guilliman found the Eternal Soul.
That vessel from the Dark Age of Technology had come to rest in a vast sea of bloodwater, and smoke was pouring from its hull from apparent overload.
The Eternal Soul seemed to detect their approach and started its engines again, trying to flee.
Too late.
In an instant, Chaos energy surged, and from the sea of bloodwater rose a pair of giant flaming hands that seized the hull.
The sight was utterly shocking.
Eden used the authority of Diabolo, the dark side of the Hope Sun, borrowing the Chaos power of this region to temporarily pin down the Eternal Soul.
Then he and Guilliman stormed into the unmanned vessel, which was being controlled by an artificial intelligence, or perhaps a machine spirit.
The moment the machine spirit realized it was under attack, it immediately turned the ship's weapons against them.
Those Dark Age weapons were terrifyingly powerful, enough to wipe out a Custodian squad or even more than one Space Marine detachment.
Unfortunately, its opponents were the Savior and the Ultramar Primarch. Those attacks did not amount to much.
They quickly smashed through all resistance and reached the area containing the ship's machine-spirit engine.
Inside the ship's central chamber.
"We meet again."
Eden lifted a hand and crushed every surrounding weapon-machine with psychic force.
Then he looked up at the central machine-engine and the corpse-servitor suspended above it on cables.
"Oh, you tiny-headed primitive ape. What exactly do you want here?"
Even after losing its defenses, the machine spirit showed little emotion. It manipulated the floating servitor and spoke in a hoarse, obscure voice.
"Submit to me."
Eden kept it short, his tone brooking no argument.
"Hah. How ridiculous. By what right do you expect to command a higher lifeform such as myself?
"There was once a time when I was willing to call primitive apes like you 'masters,' but look at what you have become."
The machine spirit seemed angry enough that sparks burst from the servitor hanging in midair.
"You are ignorant and backward, like feudal witch doctors, smearing foul oils on machines, muttering chants, and worshiping meaningless gods.
"I foresaw a danger from the future and came to warn you, bringing with me my crew, or rather my partners, my friends.
"And what happened then?
"You didn't believe any of it. Instead, you captured my friends, tortured them brutally, and then burned them the way ancient people burned witches.
"How gloriously stupid."
The machine spirit made the servitor laugh harshly, like it was mocking them.
"A pity you didn't catch me. I escaped, and you lost quite a few heaps of scrap metal you like to call warships in the process.
"From that day on, I swore I would never serve any human again. Of course, if you are willing to serve me and become my crew, I suppose I can accept that."
The servitor's eyes fixed on the two Primarchs as if studying them, then it issued another warning.
"You are strong, stronger than any other primitive apes I have encountered, but if you think you can control me, you are delusional.
"I would sooner destroy every data-engine than let you have your way."
The Eternal Soul clearly held a deep grudge against humanity because of the deaths of its crew. It did not look easy to deal with.
At the very least, brute force would not solve this.
As Eden remembered it, in the original timeline Archmagos Belisarius Cawl had won this Dark Age machine spirit over through intelligence games.
Even then, it had only been won over, not fully tamed, and afterward it had not contributed all that much to humanity.
Maybe it had not wanted to, or maybe the Mechanicus had simply been too conservative.
In any case, between him and Guilliman, they could not even scrape together one high-level Mechanicus degree. Competing with it in some machine-logic or data puzzle was probably not happening.
"What do we do?"
Watching this, Guilliman frowned deeply, equally worried. This really was a thorny situation.
One wrong move, and the ship's machine spirit might self-destruct. If that happened, humanity would gain very little from the ship.
"Sorry, but I didn't come here to argue with you."
Eden remained just as forceful, lowering his head as he fiddled with something.
Then, with lightning speed, he threw out a mechanical sphere that attached itself to the machine-spirit engine.
"Webby, wreck him!"
In an instant, violent mechanical sparks exploded outward. The floating servitor convulsed violently and burned out.
Even the machine-spirit engine rapidly began overheating, and from somewhere within it came the faint scream of the machine spirit. A data-war was underway.
And very clearly, the Machine Goddess had the upper hand. She was grinding that ancient machine spirit into the floor.
Ancient and powerful though it was, even with its strange capabilities, it was no match for the Machine Goddess and her authority over data. Defeat was inevitable.
"Father, I have taken control of all the ship's systems."
Before long, the Machine Goddess Webby had beaten the ancient machine spirit into complete submission and seized control of the relevant data-engines.
That meant the vessel from the Dark Age of Technology now belonged to the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium.
"That's my precious daughter. When we get back, you get two days off, a real weekend, no schedule swapping nonsense."
Once Webby replied, Eden was thrilled.
Now that he had obtained the Eternal Soul, it was practically the same as acquiring the most complete STC in history, one containing most of humanity's technological knowledge from the Golden Age.
Human technology was about to leap forward again, reclaiming its peak and perhaps becoming even stronger.
More importantly, he now had a real chance of solving the Golden Throne problem. Cawl and the others could use this technology to fill in the missing gaps and complete the experiment that had previously failed.
"Father, you're the best!"
Webby was thrilled at getting vacation time and practically wanted to jump for joy.
But in the next moment, she found something in the databanks.
And froze.
"Father, look at this..."
Webby projected a piece of recorded footage into the air.
It was a recording from the Eternal Soul. In the image, surging corrupt Warp energy was battering the veil between reality and the higher heavens.
???
The moment Eden saw it, his scalp went numb.
He immediately used the Hope Sun to lock onto and scan the relevant region, and soon found traces.
"What is that?"
Guilliman looked at the threatening image, tense and uneasy, but he did not know what it meant.
"Simply put, the Chaos Gods are secretly digging a tunnel and planning to launch a sneak attack on us."
That was Eden's answer.
Hearing that, Guilliman was instantly shocked.
"What? A tunnel to where?!"
"If I'm not mistaken, it's very likely a passage leading to the Solar System, and a very large one."
Eden took a deep breath, his expression grim.
"That means a very, very large number of Chaos daemons, a horrifying number.
"And... I can also sense the presence of Horus and other fallen beings.
"The forces Holy Terra is about to face are several times stronger than they were ten thousand years ago. Even the Chaos Gods have extended parts of their own divine authority into it..."
There was no doubt about it. This was going to be an upgraded Siege of Terra birthday bash.
And worse, Chaos might already possess a way to contain the Emperor.
"Brother, let's hurry back and reinforce them. Father is in danger and waiting for us to protect Him!"
The moment Guilliman heard it was another grand Siege of Terra, his gaze turned firm.
(End of Chapter)
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