Beep! Beep! Beep!
Before Eden could even hear Guilliman's reply, a sudden blare of alarms seized everyone's attention.
The ship's augurs had clearly detected an extreme threat.
Within the holographic tactical display, three massive red warship markers appeared, glaring and unmistakable.
There was no doubt about it. The three ships Eden had just seen were all physically real. Stranger still, they were identical.
They had run into three Vengeful Spirits, and the enemy had come looking for blood. Their fire-control systems had already locked onto the Eternal Soul.
The sight before them was almost impossible to comprehend, but this was the warp. Anything could happen here.
Perhaps this was the Chaos Gods' method of dealing with him.
"It's fine. Not a big problem. The Eternal Soul can take it..." Eden said, drawing in a deep breath.
Hum...
The moment the Eternal Soul detected the threat, several layers of void shields rose into place, along with multiple specialized energy fields.
This Dark Age of Technology vessel made heavy use of humanity's Golden Age engineering. From hull to core, it was all original construction.
Unlike his flagship, the Dreamweaver, which had been assembled from salvaged parts.
The Eternal Soul was immensely powerful and absurdly durable. Otherwise, it never could have drifted through the warp for ten or twenty thousand years.
It had even passed through warp storms and crossed time itself.
According to prior Imperial records, when the Eternal Soul had tried to escape in the past, it had fought off a large Imperial fleet, come through unharmed, and even destroyed several battleships.
Judging from that alone, handling three Vengeful Spirits should not have been a problem. At the very least, if it could not win, it could still run.
But before Eden could relax, a new mutation occurred, and his heart clenched again.
In the chaotic void, the three Vengeful Spirits began splitting apart.
Their numbers kept increasing.
"Father, I'm detecting new physical signals.
Their signal fluctuations and identification codes are completely identical to the Vengeful Spirit patterns in our archives. In other words, they're all Vengeful Spirits.
There are six signatures at present... no, twelve. The number is still rising!"
Webby had lost all trace of her usual playful tone. Her voice was grave now, because even she could not understand what was happening.
Every signal and fluctuation the mechanical goddess received conveyed the same message.
All the ships ahead were real, and every one of them could attack the Eternal Soul.
Her technical systems and analysis protocols could not disprove what she was seeing.
"You don't need to doubt it. They're all real. They just exist in different points of time and space.
Or rather, Vengeful Spirits from different timelines are appearing at the same regional node simultaneously."
Eden understood the warp far better than Webby did, so he answered her question before she could get caught in a logic loop.
If that happened, it might affect her control over this unique vessel.
By now, the sensor officer was still projecting fresh augur data into the holographic display. There were already thirty signals, and the number was still changing.
Every second brought new contacts, rising exponentially.
All of those Vengeful Spirits were spread across the fan-shaped region ahead.
Some lingered at the edges. Some floated in the depths of the void. They were scattered everywhere, drifting without pattern, brimming with threat.
By the time Eden finished speaking to Webby, there were already ninety Vengeful Spirits.
Then one hundred eighty.
Then three hundred sixty.
All of them were the Imperium's finest warships: Gloriana-class vessels.
The pressure they created was unimaginable.
In just a few breaths, those Vengeful Spirits multiplied like stars, duplicating and spreading, slowly filling the entire region and forming endlessly branching formations.
Three thousand, six thousand, nine...
They spread across the void, layer upon layer, encircling every stretch of open space around the Eternal Soul and extending deep into the darkness beyond.
These identical Vengeful Spirits, Horus's monstrous flagship, were now everywhere.
"Hiss...
Copy-paste, is that it?!"
Staring at the spectacle, Eden sucked in a sharp breath. His earlier confidence was gone.
Any being in the galaxy would feel crushing pressure, even despair, if thousands of Gloriana-class warships suddenly spawned point-blank in front of them.
"Guilliman, why aren't you saying anything? You've run into this before, right? How did you deal with it back then?"
Eden suddenly remembered and asked. Since a moment ago, his brother had gone silent.
He remembered that when Guilliman had led his relief fleet before, it had also been ambushed by a copy-paste flood of Vengeful Spirits appearing right on top of them.
Only this time, the situation was even worse.
Back then, Guilliman had commanded a colossal fleet of over three thousand mainline warships, plus even more cargo vessels and engine-transport haulers.
This time, Eden had only one ship.
"Brother, you okay?"
Receiving no answer, Eden tore his attention away from the tactical display and the void outside, then turned toward Guilliman.
His brother did not look good.
His body trembled faintly. His face had gone pale. One hand braced against the wall as he drew ragged breaths.
He looked triggered, locked inside some inward spiral.
"No..." Guilliman stared out through the dome at the densely packed Vengeful Spirits, and the agonizing memories of ten thousand years ago rose once more within his mind.
It had been one of the most painful, most hopeless experiences of his life.
Such powerlessness.
Back then, Guilliman had received word that his father, the Emperor, still lived. He had immediately abandoned the Second Imperium and organized a fresh counteroffensive.
He had brought a hundred thousand Ultramarines and more than three thousand capital ships, rushing to Terra's aid at full speed.
Under the Lord of Ultramar's command, that relief campaign had been glorious.
He crushed every defensive line the traitors had laid before him and drove straight for Terra, unstoppable.
Before long, Guilliman established contact with Terra's command center and declared his loyalty to his father with confidence.
Nine hours.
The Lord of Ultramar's relief fleet would arrive at Terra in nine hours and reverse the collapsing war.
But when Guilliman, proud and battle-ready, reached the void near the Sol System and prepared to wipe the heretic traitors from Terra, he did not get the chance to do anything.
He plunged headfirst into the warp snare woven by Horus and the gods.
The Lord of Ultramar had been stunned.
He had become trapped inside a reality of "never arriving," surrounded by thousands of Vengeful Spirits.
His relief fleet could not break through the encirclement, and its losses mounted rapidly.
Guilliman had just boasted to the Emperor, yet his fleet was now stuck in that warp-storm trap, unable to move, while desperation devoured him.
Terra was right there, just beyond reach.
And yet it might as well have been forever unreachable.
Time passed bit by bit.
Days.
Months.
A year, perhaps longer.
By the time Guilliman's fleet finally emerged from the storm zone, the war was over.
Because of his delay, his father, the Emperor, had been forced to face Horus in single combat while surrounded, and in the end had been mortally wounded, reduced to the tortured skeleton upon the Golden Throne.
"I failed my father's trust. I ruined everything. I left the Imperium of Man to sink into darkness..."
Through all these years, Guilliman had never forgotten that unforgivable mistake, and from time to time, he still felt deep shame and self-reproach.
That was why, after his return, he had nearly burned away his own life trying to save the Imperium, drowning in endless governance and duty.
In a way, that too had been penance.
Only after the Savior appeared and took up the burden of the Imperium had Guilliman finally begun to emerge from that old regret and exhaustion.
His face had slowly regained its smile.
But now the Emperor, his father, had once again fallen into crisis. Holy Terra was under siege from the traitor Horus and the Chaos Gods.
It was hanging by a thread.
More importantly, on the road back to him, Guilliman had once again encountered the nightmare that had once driven him to despair.
He was surrounded by Vengeful Spirits all over again.
As if yesterday had returned.
"Can I... still make it back to Terra in time to save my father?" Guilliman asked, his voice trembling as doubt overtook him.
He was terrified of repeating the same failure, of leaving his father to fight alone again.
And this time, he might lose him forever.
The void before them was blank blackness.
There were no markers, no landmarks, nothing but Vengeful Spirits.
The Chaos energies and immaterial vortices were revolting beyond words. Realspace had been torn apart, and three-dimensional physics had collapsed completely.
This region was utterly corrupted, frozen in place, with no visible path out.
"This is bad... Could it be Guilliman's cosmic bad-luck aura of always arriving late infected us too?"
Eden could also feel the surrounding space, warped and collapsing into chaos. Any further warp travel here would likely be useless.
They would probably just keep jumping from one repeated zone full of Vengeful Spirits to another, trapped in an endless maze loop until the Vengeful Spirits ground them to dust.
"If I throw Guilliman out for now and come back for him later, would that break the current loop of being forever stuck on the way to reinforce somebody?
He probably wouldn't blame me, right?"
As Eden looked at the withdrawn Guilliman, that thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.
After all, when it came to weird metaphysical nonsense, who could say?
...???
Even in his spiral, Guilliman noticed the Savior-brother's gaze.
He slowly raised his head and looked back.
Their eyes met.
No way, brother?!
Guilliman's lips trembled slightly as he realized something. His gaze revealed a trace of disbelief.
He seemed to understand what Eden was thinking, and inner conflict filled him.
Eden gave his brother a grave look, conveying his meaning without words.
Exactly, brother.
Guilliman hesitated, then shut his eyes in pain and nodded.
With great difficulty, he agreed.
This time, he would be unable to return to Terra in time, but at least Brother Eden could go back and hold the line.
For humanity.
For their father.
Guilliman was willing to dive back into the warp maelstrom once more, even if it meant spending another several hundred or thousand years in there.
Then, in the next moment, a hand slapped him on the shoulder.
"Brother, I was joking. We're going back together." Eden stepped in front of him with a gentle smile.
He had already thought it through.
Under these circumstances, throwing Guilliman out would not help much. It would only cost the Imperium one of its most important warriors for no gain.
Besides, the Chaos Gods were most likely targeting him, not Guilliman.
"So, brother, can you tell me how you dealt with the Vengeful Spirit blockade back then?"
Looking at his brother, whose expression had recovered a little, Eden asked the question.
Guilliman let out a slow breath and shook his head.
"I didn't solve it. Father did, after he slew Horus and reignited the Astronomican."
In simple terms, the Emperor had broken the "never-arriving" warp trap by killing Horus, then lit the Astronomican anew to guide Guilliman's relief fleet home.
The problem was that the Emperor was giving them no sign now. He was probably still asleep.
That meant they would have to solve this themselves.
"Brother, can you break this trap?" Guilliman looked at the Savior before him, a sliver of hope rising in his heart. This brother, like their father, wielded immense warp-born authority.
"At the very least, it isn't an unsolvable trap," Eden said, and now he finally had a little confidence.
If the Emperor could deal with it, then maybe he, the Savior, could too.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Even as he spoke, four or five Vengeful Spirits opened fire.
Hateful lance beams and torpedoes screamed toward them, making the Eternal Soul's shields shudder violently.
The entire ship trembled under the overload, lurching beneath the bombardment.
Just a single volley had cracked the outer shields.
If they did not act soon, the vessel would almost certainly be destroyed.
Eden stepped before the observation dome and stared into the void packed with Vengeful Spirits.
He could feel the thick malice and mockery behind this trap, and even make out the distorted shadows of four immense gods.
The Chaos Gods were watching.
Watching and laughing at him, mocking and humiliating him, this so-called Savior.
They believed he could not escape this trap.
That he could only watch helplessly as the Throne fell, just as Guilliman had ten thousand years ago.
As the Chaos Gods laughed, the tides of the warp grew more violent, crashing against this poor isolated ship.
And more Vengeful Spirits closed in, firing with everything they had.
Thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of shipboard weapons struck from overlapping layers of space at once, filling every line of sight.
It was terrifying.
Crack!
The Eternal Soul's augur array burned out from overload, and even the mechanical goddess fell into temporary logic disarray.
"This may be our last chance."
The pressure of despair rushed over them. Even Guilliman could not help holding his breath. His heart felt as though a loathsome claw had closed around it.
If this next barrage landed, the Eternal Soul would be obliterated.
Even if he and Eden somehow survived, they would be swallowed by unknown warp turbulence and forever lose any chance of reaching Holy Terra.
Yet in the face of all this, Eden became calm instead.
From the very beginning, he had been using the Sun of Hope to analyze the structure of this trap and the warp-circuitry running through it.
Under Guilliman's hopeful gaze, the Savior suddenly raised both hands in a burst of psychic light, so steady and reassuring that it instantly steadied the heart.
Then Guilliman froze.
His brother... merely stuck both glowing middle fingers up at the void.
And in the next second, two golden hands appeared in the void as well, returning the gesture toward the far side, causing the tides of Chaos to react even more violently as endless daemons surged forward with the storm.
The Chaos Gods were enraged.
But Eden showed no fear at all. He provoked them with reckless confidence, his voice filled with certainty.
"You ugly idiots, don't forget. I am the King of Counterfeit in the warp!"
As he spoke, he pushed the Sun of Hope to its limit, copying their warp circuitry and forcing his own psychic power into this vortex-trap region.
He altered it.
In an instant, the region around the Eternal Soul began to shake as well.
Then, under countless loathsome, hateful gazes, the Dark Age vessel split apart.
And it split faster and faster.
Each new Eternal Soul fused with the space occupied by a Vengeful Spirit, creating a one-to-one state in which incoming fire could no longer penetrate their defenses.
The Savior had used the trap and warp-energy built by the Chaos Gods themselves, then built a fresh layer of chaotic interference in reverse to cancel it out.
Fast, efficient, and brutally effective.
"Brother, why are there so many people? I think I'm going to throw up.
Urgh!"
Every molecule in Guilliman's body was trembling. He felt drunk out of his mind, dizzy and disoriented.
It was as if countless versions of himself existed at once, though none of them were truly real.
"Hold steady, Guilliman. Just like your father once did, I'm taking you back to the Sol System!" Eden slapped his brother on the shoulder and smiled gently.
Once he had successfully imposed his influence on this region through the Sun of Hope, he knew they had this in hand.
The Chaos Gods had already spent the overwhelming majority of their warp power and authority digging this pit.
They could no longer project enough force here to stop him.
Hum...
A faint golden light shone into the region, forming a golden passage.
On either side stood walls of luminous runes, holding back the raging tides.
Then, to Guilliman's astonishment, the Eternal Soul slowly sailed into that corridor.
No one knew how much time passed before the golden light finally ended.
Eden sat down with one hand on his side, feeling faintly drained.
Even for him, dealing with a trap jointly laid by the Chaos Gods was exhausting.
Fortunately, the Sun of Hope possessed devouring authority. He could always sneak a bite or two out of the Holy Sun to recover a little power.
"We're back in the galaxy." Guilliman gazed at the brilliant stars and could not stop himself from smiling.
After that, the Eternal Soul did not pause for even a moment.
It immediately made for the nearest Webway node.
On the bridge:
"Webby, how far are we from the Sol System? Can we still arrive within the projected timeframe?
And... patch me through to the Sol System at once. I need to know what's happening there!"
Eden drew in a breath. His voice was hoarse now.
"Father, we're late. Roughly one to two Terran days behind schedule.
According to the last distress signal transmitted, the Sol System is already under Chaos assault, and large numbers of fleets failed to arrive on time because of warp-tide interference!"
As the mechanical goddess searched through the signal patterns, her voice trembled on the edge of tears.
She was worried about Grandfather Emperor.
Eden swallowed hard. His whole body felt numb.
"Now all we can do is hope Dorn can hold Horus and the other fallen Primarchs back until reinforcements arrive.
I just don't know whether our third brother can hold the line."
Imperial core, the Sol System.
Seen from the stars, the once brilliant, radiant Sol System was now smothered beneath a curtain of darkness. No one could tell what was happening inside.
The Imperium's Astronomican had gone dark.
Within the Sol System, warp energy flooded in like an ocean tide. One iridescent rift after another split the Imperial heartland apart.
They isolated defending forces from one another, turning Holy Terra and several nearby worlds into besieged islands.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Through the ruins of a collapsed space fortress, a terrifying figure in black armor advanced step by step, human blood still dripping from his claws.
Horus casually flung aside the corpse of a high-ranking Imperial warrior and looked toward distant Holy Terra.
In the red glow, his face looked hideously savage.
"My father. False Emperor. Your betrayed son has returned.
This time, no one will stop the fire of my vengeance.
The galaxy will burn once more."
(End of Chapter)
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