"What happened?? Why did my big daemon turn into a frog?!"
Seated on the brass throne, Khorne's usual anger was mixed with shock and disbelief. Was he seeing things? The mighty daemon, symbol of rage and slaughter, had turned into a fat green frog with a white belly, just sitting there in a daze on the battlefield.
Even for Khorne, that ancient embodiment of endless war and fury, what happened at Terra's Lion's Gate was beyond comprehension. It wasn't magic, nor a psychic hallucination, but a fundamental change at the rules level—as if someone had erased the daemon and drew a frog in its place.
The frog sat amid corpses and blood, looking utterly out of place against the smoky battlefield. Its mouth opened in a helpless croak, its eyes full of animal terror.
Even the Emperor on the Golden Throne, straining to contain his power, moved his lips in surprise. How did that man turn a Khorne daemon into a frog? The Emperor monitored the battle outside Lion's Gate, but did not intervene—he could not safely control his power. If he acted freely, he might destroy Terra itself. Besides, with Guilliman leading, there was no risk of the Palace falling. He was not simply watching—he was actively guiding the Mechanicum Sages who maintained the Golden Throne, accelerating adjustments to its parameters and channeling his power to protect Terra.
"Don't just stand there with that dumb look—finish it now!"
Datch, a bit embarrassed, got up from the ground. His words broke the unnatural silence of the battlefield, and fierce fighting resumed immediately.
Valerian was the first to recover, his warrior's instincts dispelling confusion. Frog or daemon, if it's an enemy, it must be slain. He shouted a battle cry, lunged forward, and stabbed the still-croaking, helpless frog.
"For the Emperor!"
Aleya, too, snapped out of her shock, plunging her sword into the enemy. Other Imperial warriors rushed in, unleashing their fury on the frog. The transformed daemon could only try to hop away, croaking desperately, but surrounded by so many of the Imperium's finest, it had no chance. In just a few moments, it was shattered into hundreds of pieces, which soon dissolved into drifting ashes.
"Damn, that was strong—I almost died," Datch muttered, pulling out his golden hammer to tap his battered armor back to normal. Luckily, he remembered the frog candy in time. If it were a Khorne daemon, he'd need a Master Ball to catch it and turn it into a loyal Servant, but Master Balls were too expensive to waste. Besides, he already had the Skarbrand on his hand—catching another Khorne daemon was pointless.
…
Watching his minions destroyed with such mockery and humiliation, Khorne's anger, barely contained, erupted like a TNT-charged volcano.
"ROOOAAARRRR—!!!!!!!"
A howl, even more terrifying than before, shook the Warp. An unspeakable storm swept the galaxy, severing countless channels with the Blood God's rage. The tides of the Immaterium grew fiercer; the entire realm of Khorne boiled as countless daemons howled and surged toward the Warp rifts leading to Terra.
Khorne's will was singular: Flood this world, wash away the shame with endless blood and skulls, even if it destroys Terra.
Just as the daemonic army burst through the veil and the battle threatened to spiral out of control, another power—no less than the Chaos force of the Golden Throne—spread rapidly from the Palace's depths, like the rising sun driving out the cold night.
It was the Emperor's power.
After a desperate struggle by the Mechanicum Sages, the Golden Throne's vital standards were finally stabilized. The Emperor's power, now successfully channeled, transformed into a barrier covering all of Terra and even the entire solar system.
Every Warp entity on Terra—be they lowly bloodletters, warhounds, mighty brass bull knights, Chaos lords, or Khorne daemons—all howled in pain and weakness. Under the Emperor's influence, the Warp's power was harshly suppressed and rejected. Hellfire visibly dimmed, their movements slowed and weakened.
The weakest daemons flickered with golden flames, and with woeful cries, burned to ash as if they had never existed. Even the mightiest Khorne daemons roared in protest, struggling to lift their now-heavy weapons—but their strength was a pale shadow of before.
"Banish them." Guilliman ordered the Imperial forces to counterattack.
The daemons raged and despaired, but could not change their fate; they were defeated and banished back to the Warp by the Imperium's heroes. As the reality barrier strengthened, the rifts closed, and Khorne's howls from the Warp faded—then vanished entirely.
The battlefield was devastated, but the daemonic invasion had been gloriously repelled. The Imperium began treating the wounded and cleaning up.
Datch also received his task completion prompt:
*[Mission complete: Congratulations for aiding the Imperium to victory at the Battle of the Lion's Gate.]
[Mission rewards: 2,000 XP, 2,000 points, Reputation +300, Mouse Charm (24 hours) 1x]
As soon as he thought of it, the Mouse Charm stored in Datch's game inventory appeared in his hand. Palm-sized, simple, neither gold nor jade, warm to the touch, with a lifelike relief of a mouse carved on the front.
"This is nice," Datch said, playing with it before storing it away again.
With so many Primarchs and statues of the Emperor, activating any of them was always entertaining.
Datch watched the Imperial army sweeping the battlefield, glimpsed Trajann, Guilliman, and the others discussing post-battle arrangements.
"I'd better grind more XP and points," Datch muttered, pulling out the golden hammer and starting to heal more wounded.
…
Meanwhile, elsewhere…
Above the Golden Throne's trajectory, a ship lay quietly in the void, its dark hull reflecting like a green metallic spear in the forest shadow. This ship—Absolution's Hymn—was a Dark Angels vessel.
Absolution's Hymn had come from Fenris to warn Terra: Magnus had attacked Fenris, using the dead for a ritual, planning to restore lost Prospero to realspace and build a psychic empire. But Magnus arrived in the solar system before Absolution's Hymn, and a battle broke out on Luna.
With the Primarch revived and acting as regent, Terra's departments were busy—Absolution's Hymn was told to wait in orbital quarantine. While waiting for word from Terra, Sar Daviel and Remial secretly scanned its communications, trying to gather intel. In the process, they heard the forbidden name—Cypher.
The Dark Angels and their descendents had always tried to cover up the truth about Caliban's civil war, hunting the Fallen scattered across time by the Warp. Cypher was the most infamous of them all.
"We cannot allow the Custodes to get information from Cypher," Sar Daviel said. "We must act before the situation stabilizes. Erase all traces and records, use the chaos on Terra, infiltrate the dark prison guarded by the Custodes, and if possible, take Cypher. If not, execute the secret order—eliminate him."
...
Bonus chapter at 300 PS
Read atleast 45 chapter at patreon.com/AbsoluteCode