"Gave up on ascension? Vashtorr voluntarily gave up on ascension?" Lorgar was slightly shocked, asking in disbelief.
Lorgar could not imagine that an entity born from the Warp would actively abandon the path to godhood. According to Lorgar's understanding, Vashtorr had always been in relentless pursuit of the way to ascend.
+I do not know the specifics, but I imagine there was a trap within that path,+ the girl replied.
She looked at Abaddon, sensing the surge of faith and symbolism within him. +Vashtorr is, after all, an entity born from an infinite thirst for knowledge.+
+Survival and ascension are not his primary motivators; only the thirst for knowledge is.+
+When he realized that his ascension would destroy all things that could be known, he naturally abandoned it.+
+Alexander calculated exactly that.+
The girl turned her head slightly, looking at Lorgar. Her hollow eyes were soul-piercing, making Lorgar's body tremble slightly. +Lorgar, my High Chaplain, go prepare the ritual.+
+Furthermore, prepare weapons and armor for my Warmaster.+
The title "High Chaplain" brought a fleeting moment of joy to Lorgar's face. He assumed a humble expression, bowed his head slightly, and silently exited the tower.
"The Three are watching this place," Horus said in a heavy voice, glancing outside the tower.
He knew his Father had reached some form of agreement with the Three. The girl would gain Lorgar, and in exchange, she would help the Gods tame Abaddon and use him to complete a ritual—mixing Chaos itself into Alexander 's foundation of faith.
This would tear Alexander apart, forcing him to become a Chaos God—one of them. Ideally, it would split Alexander in two, forming divine domains of "Vicious Artistry" and "Greedy Dissolution." This wouldn't diminish Alexander 's power; rather, it would greatly enhance him, but in a way that strengthened the Gods against the Dark King and ensured Alexander could no longer suppress them or stand above them.
Truly, they are vermin... Horus thought silently. Just like during the Great Heresy, even when the Gods reached a surface-level cooperation, the background was filled with petty schemes.
Now, the Gods were staring fixedly at this place. If the girl did not follow their will to perform the ritual to tear Alexander apart, they would likely expose her location to Alexander immediately to coerce her. And once the girl completed the ritual... the Gods would likely turn on her instantly, attempting to erase her together. The girl's only way out was to seize the moment when Alexander was dragged down by the faith of Chaos to escape from the Gods' grasp. Thus, the Gods were not worried about her defying their will.
"I truly don't understand. Is Lorgar worth such a risk?" Horus asked, raising his voice slightly.
The girl simply looked at him calmly and shook her head, indicating it was not something he needed to know.
Still more secrets. Horus felt a stifling sensation in his heart; he truly disliked his Father's habit of keeping him in the dark. He craved more trust from his Father.
But the girl seemed to lack much humanity. She gently removed her hand from Abaddon and walked silently out of the tower to see how Lorgar's ritual preparations were progressing.
Horus watched the girl's slender back, seeing her bare feet step lightly into the air, exiting the tower like a phantom in the mist. He felt something stagnant in his heart—something sour, bitter, and astringent—clogging his throat. It finally escaped as a heavy sigh.
He felt his Father was different now, yet in some ways, exactly the same. He remembered the Emperor's expression in Nurgle's realm, when He personally executed those humans who secretly worshipped Him but were infected by the plague. He didn't have to stop at those plague worlds, nor did He have to grant them death; it only delayed their movements and left a trail easy to follow. Yet, He ended the believers' suffering personally. The image of His compassionate, merciful, and slightly pained expression—a look radiating divinity and a certain light—flickered in Horus's mind.
It was so similar to the Emperor Horus had first met ten thousand years ago; almost identical. The Horus of the past was certain his Father was a great being, and the Horus of today believed the same. He just felt that something was missing from this girl...
"Are you lacking love?" Beta asked with a giggle.
"How pathetic, Horus. Do you want a hug from Mommy?"
Just as Gamma opened his mouth to utter a mocking remark, Horus's fist landed on Gamma's face with incredible speed, then instantly struck Beta's jaw. The sound of breaking bone echoed. Gamma and Beta collapsed to the ground, emitting whimpering moans.
"You have split too many times. You are too weak," Horus looked down at them. "If you weren't useful to Father, I would truly like to test how many more times you can split."
Gamma and Beta stared at Horus with identical eyes. They tried to speak to insult him, but found their jaws shattered. Even for a Primarch, it would take some time to recover.
"Get out," Horus said.
Gamma stood up, spat out broken teeth, grabbed Beta, and after casting a mocking glance at Horus, silently retreated from the room.
Horus shook his head and sat cross-legged opposite the silent Abaddon. "Back then, I said Loken was my Sanguinius, and you were my Lupercal."
"A prophecy fulfilled. Loken died, and his death nourished the birth of a daemon."
"And you... you became a puppet of the Gods just like me, tortured into this monstrous form."
Horus looked at Abaddon's Helbrute body. Deep in his soul, he felt an impulse to dig Abaddon out of that shell, but his reason and his Father's needs forced him to suppress it. "I know what you have done, but I no longer wish to condemn you for it."
"The mistakes you made were but a replay of the ones I once made."
A bitter smile crossed Horus's lips. "If only Sejanus hadn't died..."
"If only I had listened more to Loken's advice..."
Thousands of words eventually turned into a faint sigh.
"Loken..." A muffled sound came from within Abaddon's body. It seemed a fragment of Abaddon's remaining consciousness was also reminiscing about the brother who had eventually become his enemy.
"Yes, Loken..." Horus sighed again. "A Luna Wolf."
"Loken."
It was fleeing. Samus was fleeing. It scurried through the Warp, writhing between chaos and darkness. It was Samus—the end and the death, the beginning and the end of the Great Heresy. Samus was always there, right behind you, the person standing right next to you. Samus was born of a death—the death of the one who witnessed Horus kill the Emperor, and the Emperor kill Horus.
"Loken."
That name echoed in Samus's ears. Yes, Loken. Samus was born from Loken's death, but he existed in the Warp before Loken died. It was he who facilitated the first step of the Great Heresy on planet 63-19, and it was he who was born at the moment the Heresy ended. Loken's death closed the loop of the entire rebellion, and thus Samus gained extraordinary power at the moment of his birth. He could traverse any moment of the Heresy, easily possessing mortals who appeared during that time. He could wither bodies; he could let his voice spread through whispers.
But now, he—the powerful he—was being hunted. Samus fled into the profound depths of the Heresy's history. Emotions generated by the rebellion echoed in this part of the Warp; terrifying entities were born and died, died and were born. He fled past the projection of the Eisenstein's wreckage; he passed through burning ships from the Battle of Phall; he saw the Sisypheum pass through the Descent; he bypassed the bloody slaughter on Isstvan III. But He... He was still chasing Samus.
"Loken."
His voice was right beside Samus.
He was everywhere—in the sudden burst of inspiration, in a moment of hunger, in the roaring power of machinery, in a fleeting moment of satisfaction. His shadow, his round hands, his pocket, his face, his body—he existed in all things.
"Loken."
He whispered in Samus's ear, slowly cornering him. Samus wailed and dove into a shattered piece of space-time submerged in the Warp. This was a memory, an echo of an experience turned into a narrow mini-world. It was enough to contain Samus. Within this world, Samus gained form: a hunched back, a canine skull, ferocious claws, holding a curved blade—like a hellhound emerging from death.
Samus hurriedly looked around. This world of sedimented memory was merely a transit station. Samus's true goal was to use this memory to jump to some point in the Horus Heresy to escape the all-pervading hunt of that divinity. Soon, Samus identified the location reflected by this memory: Terra. The Investiture Square in the Imperial Palace. A thin twilight shadow covered the square. The iron pillars engraved with oaths gleamed in the thin sunlight, showing oaths completed or yet to be fulfilled. Further away, the sun had not yet reached; day and night were clearly divided. This was where the Great Crusade began—the starting point of humanity's reconquest of the stars.
Samus froze. Fear gripped it, afraid that a golden-armored giant would suddenly emerge and strike it down with a flaming sword.
Fortunately, it didn't happen. Samus noticed twenty statues standing beneath the sky—statues of the Primarchs carved from the last remaining marble of Mount Pentelicus. Two had been removed, and nine were covered in white cloth, as if to hide the betrayal that had occurred.
Samus exhaled slightly. This meant he hadn't jumped into the wrong memory. This was a memory from the Heresy era. He needed to find a person in this memory, crawl into their body, and follow the memory to possess that person in the actual timeline of the Heresy.
But he hadn't yet figured out whose memory this was.
"Black Knight." "Hunt him." "Bring Loken back."
Samus's body stiffened. He heard it again—that divine voice. Why? Why was his voice still here, in a memory whose owner was unknown?
"This is my memory."
The sound of mechanical transmission, the hiss of steam, and the howling of electric currents intertwined to form the clashing of armor. Samus turned its head stiffly. A cool breeze blew from the shadows not yet touched by the sun, swirling old dust like drifting silk. It carved, touched, and outlined the figure clad in pitch-black armor.
It was a knight. An Astartes. Clad in black plate, wearing a surcoat, with a golden laurel wreath around his helmet, bright as if carved from sunlight. The blade in his hand was also black, as if forged from smoke, ink, and night.
He moved his body slightly, as if adjusting to his own frame. With every movement he made, Samus felt its heart skip a beat. Samus could see the terrifying things accumulated upon him—a will, a nearly infinite will born of human desire and nurtured in war; a coldness, a nearly pure weapon born of the Emperor's hand and sharpened in betrayal; a hatred, a nearly pitch-black sun born of a traitor's sin and forged between life and death.
"Loken."
The Black Knight looked at Samus. His voice was light and cold, like a mechanical sound or an echo from the past. "I still remember what I said when we first met."
"The crusade never ends. The stars are infinite, and so is our desire for them."
"In the far future, there is only war."
"Now it seems, a prophecy fulfilled."
"No, you can't be alive." Samus gasped. "Even your soul shouldn't exist; it should have been pulled into that pitch-black sun along with everything else."
"I have no soul."
The Black Knight said, "I am but a weapon. I am but a sword."
Samus shuddered as the realization hit. It saw that beneath the Black Knight's armor, there was no person at all—only the machine itself, only the weapon itself.
"You are not him. You are a machine spirit. Are you the Black Sword?"
"I am him. He polished me thousands of times with hatred; as he sharpened my edge, he ground his spirit bit by bit into the metal that shaped me. I am his hatred, his coldness, his hope, his passion, his courage, and his desire."
"He knew perfectly well. He was the same as me, and I the same as him. We are both swords. We are weapons."
The Black Knight approached, step by step.
Samus could only tremble as it uttered the Black Knight's name.
"Sigismund."
The Black Sword was drawn.