Erebus stood before the blood-soaked Chaos altar. The boiling lake of blood slowly calmed, and the purple vortex faded into nothing. Fulgrim's figure had vanished, yet his cloying sweet scent lingered in the air long after he was gone.
Erebus drew a deep breath, collected his thoughts, and turned his attention to the next target.
The Chaos sorcerers began their incantation. The blood lake shifted once more. Gone were sea and forest, gone every trace of life. In their place stretched a world sheathed entirely in steel — an endless sprawl of factories, smelters, fortresses, and a sky forever choked by smoke.
This was Perturabo's Iron Kingdom, the supreme production citadel and military bastion he had forged through centuries of relentless labor.
Perturabo himself stood before the colossal fortress still rising from the earth. Its scale defied comprehension. The walls towered a hundred meters high, each section cast from a single monolithic plate of steel. Defense turrets and energy-shield projectors studded every surface. Beyond the walls, countless siege engines of monstrous size underwent final testing. Within, legions of slaves and abominations toiled without pause.
The machines took every conceivable grotesque form. Some scuttled like colossal spiders on eight articulated metal legs, weaving between half-built towers while hauling tons of materiel on their backs. Others wore twisted parodies of human shape — four arms working in perfect synchronization, wielding welding torches, rivet guns, plasma cutters, and precision scanners at once. Still others were nothing more than shifting masses of modular components that could disassemble and reform at will.
After betraying his father, Perturabo had cast aside the ancient prohibitions against artificial intelligence. He had bound daemons to machine spirits, birthing these abominable hybrids that could never disobey his will. They combined the cold precision and tireless strength of machines with the cruelty and unquestioning obedience of daemons.
At this very moment, under Perturabo's iron command, the abominations raised the fortress at breathtaking speed. Welding sparks showered like fireworks. The ceaseless clash of metal rang like an infernal symphony. Massive cranes lifted entire armor plates into position while robotic arms welded and locked them in place. In less than an hour, another hundred-meter length of wall thrust upward from the ground.
Perturabo stood atop the highest parapet, gazing down upon his domain. His armor was thicker than it had been during the Great Rebellion, reinforced with layered plates and crackling energy conduits. His face remained as hard as forged iron, yet a fevered, insane light burned in his eyes — the unmistakable mark of his union with a daemon.
When the sorcerous communique from Erebus arrived, Perturabo's brow creased. The furrow stood out sharply against his cold, unyielding features.
"Erebus," he rumbled. His voice was low and grating, like two rusted iron plates scraping together.
"Lord Perturabo, glory to you." Erebus bowed deeply, every line of his body radiating humility. "May your Iron Kingdom endure for all eternity, and may your fortress never fall."
Perturabo narrowed his eyes. He knew this man too well. During the Great Rebellion, Erebus had sown chaos across the galaxy with lies and schemes. His sudden reappearance could not possibly be for idle conversation.
"What do you want?" Perturabo's gaze drifted to the swarming abominations below.
Erebus hesitated, then spoke with measured care. "Rogal Dorn may be returning to the Imperium."
The metal handrail beside Perturabo crumpled like wet noodles in his grip. A sharp intake of breath escaped him.
The name Rogal Dorn was a thorn buried so deep in his soul that even ten thousand years had failed to dislodge it.
The Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists were twin legions in purpose and temperament — masters of siegecraft and fortification, famed for their unbreakable will. Yet during the Great Crusade the Emperor had favored Dorn's Imperial Fists above all. Dorn had been granted the sacred duty of defending Terra itself and the supreme honor of raising the Imperial Palace.
And what of Perturabo? His legion had bled on the hardest battlefields, shouldered the most thankless burdens, advanced when others faltered, and paid the bloodiest prices without complaint. He had believed the Emperor would notice, would acknowledge, would grant him the recognition he had earned.
The Emperor had remained silent.
Perturabo had watched Dorn receive laurels, command the greatest campaigns, and stand forever in the Emperor's light. He told himself it was a test. He worked harder. He grew more ruthless. He spoke less.
Only when rebellion erupted on his own homeworld did he finally understand: the Emperor had never cared for him at all.
"So he has returned. What of it?" Perturabo's voice finally broke the silence, thick with barely contained fury. "A failed guardian who could not even protect the Palace — what right does he have to stand as my enemy?"
"It is merely to honor Lord Perturabo's name," Erebus replied, voice soft and deferential.
Yet every word struck Perturabo's heart like a needle.
"In the modern Human Imperium, Rogal Dorn is celebrated as a hero, the very model of loyalty. His name is inscribed in every history book."
"But you — and your Iron Warriors — were erased from the annals long ago, buried beneath the dust of forgotten ages."
Perturabo's brow deepened into a scowl.
"Even those few who still know the truth cling to the old proverb," Erebus continued. "'Iron rusts, but stone endures.'"
"Who remembers that you once broke him?"
"Iron decays. Stone remains. That is the lie they tell."
"They believe you and your legion have withered and become irrelevant. Yet Rogal Dorn, the living foundation of the Imperium, will stand forever."
Perturabo's eyes blazed.
"Iron decays, but stone remains?"
The abominations sensed their master's shifting mood. Work ceased. Thousands of heads turned in eerie unison. Every gaze locked upon the daemon lord. The entire construction site fell into a deathly hush.
"Within and without, we are steel," Perturabo declared, his voice rolling like thunder from the earth itself. "We are the true immortals."
"Yet you have not shown yourself to the Imperium in millennia," Erebus pressed. "Those fools have long since forgotten the terror and despair you once unleashed upon them."
"They know only Rogal Dorn. They know only the Imperial Fists. They know only those gilded legends."
"They do not know — or rather, they choose to forget — that those same legends once knelt before you."
Perturabo said nothing, but the fire in his eyes burned hotter.
"I urge you to join Operation Vigilant Star," Erebus revealed his true purpose at last. "This world is of paramount importance. A nameless man has opened a stable warp corridor here that leads directly to Macragge."
"From here, one may reach the Macragge system — the new heart of the Human Imperium — in the blink of an eye."
"A new seat of power?" Perturabo's frown deepened. "Roboute grows ambitious indeed. It seems he means to finish what Horus began."
A cold, cruel smile slowly spread across Perturabo's face — the smile of a hunter watching prey step into his trap.
"I will join this war," he said. "I will teach those fools that Rogal Dorn is nothing."
"I salute your wisdom, my lord," Erebus answered at once. "The Imperium's cattle will soon remember the despair and terror you gifted them ten thousand years ago. They will rue the day they forgot you. They will fear your return. They will tremble before your Iron Legion."
Perturabo spoke no further. He simply waved his hand, severing the sorcerous link.
The abominations resumed their labor. Sparks flew anew.
Perturabo remained motionless atop his fortress, gazing across his iron kingdom. A complex light burned in his eyes.
Rogal Dorn.
This time, he would make the entire galaxy understand who was the true immortal… and who was the true master of siege and stone.
Erebus exhaled in quiet satisfaction. Another Primarch had been turned. Only one remained. The sacrificial rite grew ever more intricate.
Layer upon layer of prayer-runes overlapped, shimmering with shifting, otherworldly light.
This time he must summon Magnus — the being whose psychic might stood second only to the Emperor and the Chaos Gods themselves.
Of late, Magnus had been forging his own psychic empire: a realm ruled entirely by psykers, destined one day to supplant the rotting corpse of the Human Imperium.
Psykers flocked to him from every corner of the galaxy, offering worship, obedience, and their very souls.
Before Erebus's ritual was even half complete, Magnus's razor-sharp perception detected it.
"Erebus."
A towering figure materialized above the altar — a giant more than four meters in height, skin the color of dark crimson, two vast wings folded behind his back. One eye blazed with ancient wisdom. The staff in his hand pulsed with pure psychic force.
"What are you doing?"
Magnus's voice carried both wariness and irritation. He had never liked Erebus; the scheming apostle always brought calamity. Yet curiosity still stirred within him.
Erebus dropped at once into the deepest obeisance.
"Most revered Lord of the Thousand Sons, Master of Wisdom and Fate, Lord Magnus," he intoned with priestly reverence. "Erebus offers his humble greetings. May your empire endure forever, and may your wisdom illuminate every world."
Magnus arched one brow. Flattery pleased him, though he refused to show it.
A few honeyed words would not earn a smile from him.
"Erebus," he said dryly, "say what you came to say. Your petty games will not deceive me."
"Only natural, my lord," Erebus replied, bowing even lower. "My meager intellect cannot hope to match the boundless wisdom of the great Magnus. In your presence I am but a firefly before the sun."
Magnus almost laughed. He suppressed it.
"Speak plainly."
"The great Despoiler Abaddon prepares a full-scale assault upon Vigilant Star," Erebus announced. "He offers you power and glory in return for your aid."
"This war will decide the fate of the Nachmund Sector… and the future of the Human Imperium itself."
Magnus's brow lifted slightly.
"Abaddon?" Contempt dripped from every syllable. "That brainless brute? He knows nothing but slaughter. I have no time for his tantrums."
"The Nameless Ones walk Vigilant Star as well," Erebus continued calmly. "Roboute Guilliman may also be moving toward the same battlefield."
Magnus flicked his hand dismissively.
"What concern is any of this to me?"
Erebus paused, choosing his next words with care. "The Imperium's newest historical arcnests now speak of the Lunar War."
Magnus froze.
The Lunar War.
The one chapter of his past he most wished erased.
He had clashed there with Guilliman and the Nameless One — and had been hurled, broken and humiliated, into the deepest reaches of the webway by the latter's merciless hand.
A disgrace beyond words.
"What did they write?" Magnus's voice turned lethal.
Erebus lowered his head as though reluctant.
"Speak," Magnus commanded, the air itself trembling with restrained fury.
Erebus drew breath.
"They claim you were beaten senseless by Roboute… that you knelt in the dirt, weeping, and begged for your life."
"In the end, Roboute remembered the brotherly bond you once shared. Pity moved him. He spared you — but only on the condition that you never again set foot within the Imperium's borders. Had he not felt that fleeting mercy, he would have ended you."
The instant the words left Erebus's lips, the entire ritual apparatus convulsed. A cataclysmic psychic shockwave erupted from Magnus, hurling Erebus through the air. He tumbled seven or eight times before slamming into a stone pillar.
Blood trickled from the corner of the Dark Apostle's mouth — yet a triumphant smile curved his lips.
He had succeeded.
"How dare Roboute!" Magnus's roar shook the very fabric of reality. "How dare he pen such filth! How dare he slander me so!"
The Crimson King paced like a caged beast, one eye blazing with apocalyptic wrath, warping space around him.
"I go to Vigilant Star!" he thundered. "I will show Roboute who truly kneels and begs!"
Erebus pushed himself upright, wiped the blood away, and bowed once more.
"Your rage is righteous, my lord. Your dignity shall never be besmirched. On Vigilant Star you will display your true might for all to witness."
Magnus forced a steadying breath.
"Tell Abaddon I am coming," he growled. "Not for him — for vengeance against that detestable Roboute."
The link severed. Erebus dabbed at his mouth and allowed himself a satisfied smile.
Another one secured. Next… Mortarion.
Communion with the Death Lord was far simpler than with the others.
The moment the ritual concluded, an invisible pressure rolled outward from the far side of the circle. Chaos sorcerers and cultists screamed in agony. Light dimmed. Shadows thickened and writhed. Distorted faces flickered at the edges of vision.
Mortarion's colossal form coalesced at the circle's heart.
He had changed beyond recognition.
During the Plague Wars he had still retained something of his human shape. Now he was a swollen, grotesque titan encased in corrupted armor. The plates had stretched and split; foul mucus and writhing maggots oozed from every fissure. His face was a mass of rotting flesh, the features obliterated save for two empty eye sockets and a constantly suppurating maw.
Even this projected image radiated crushing oppression.
Erebus's hands trembled despite himself. He crushed the fear down, drew breath, and managed to speak.
"Lord Mortarion…"
Only those two words.
Mortarion inclined his head — a slow, ponderous motion, as though the very air resisted him.
"I know why you summoned me," he rasped. "I am already bound for Vigilant Star. I have unfinished business with Roboute."
No persuasion was required. Any opportunity — no matter how slight — to exact vengeance upon Roboute Guilliman and the Nameless One was one Mortarion would seize with both hands.
The connection dissolved. When Erebus's senses returned, his back was drenched in cold sweat.
Next he reached out to his own former legion — to Lorgar.
His reply was as terse as ever: he would come.
The Chaos Gods watched the coming storm with keen interest. The threat posed by the Nameless Ones grew daily, while the Human Imperium rose with frightening speed. Balance must be restored.
Thus far, five Primarchs had pledged themselves to the war:
Perturabo, Magnus, Mortarion, Lorgar, and Fulgrim.
Only one Daemon Primarch remained uninvited — Angron.
Erebus hesitated. Angron's mind was too unstable; he might erupt into mindless slaughter at any moment. Better to offer fresh blood directly to the Blood God than risk approaching the Red Angel.
Erebus ordered a new rite.
Ancient prayers rose. Cultists dragged forth captives and offered their blood and souls to Khorne.
"Great Blood God, Lord of Battles, Lord of Skulls," Erebus intoned,
"Accept these offerings. Grant us your wrath. Send your warriors to join the great war."
Flames roared, turning the color of fresh blood. They twisted into the blazing symbol of the eight-pointed star, then into a skull and axe, before vanishing.
Khorne had answered.
His champions would march.
Erebus's smile was dark and knowing.
With every task complete, he dispatched a final message to Abaddon through the warp.
Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Abaddon waited in tense silence upon the bridge. He stood before the vast viewport, staring into the churning void beyond.
The ominous ark-ships of Vashtorr floated like dark mountains at the heart of the fleet, their shadows dwarfing even the mightiest battleships into insignificance.
When the communication array flared and Erebus's voice filled the bridge, Abaddon turned at once.
"Commander," Erebus reported. "Mission accomplished."
Abaddon raised an eyebrow. "Report."
"Perturabo, Magnus, Mortarion, Lorgar, and Fulgrim — five Primarchs have sworn themselves to the cause," Erebus said. "The Blood God has answered as well. His warriors march with us."
Joy lit Abaddon's scarred features.
Five Primarchs. The Black Legion's finest. Vashtorr's terrible arks. The direct blessing of the Dark Gods.
In this war, Chaos held every advantage.
"Excellent!" the Despoiler roared, voice echoing across the bridge. The surrounding Chaos lords answered with savage cheers. Corrupted crewmen howled their bloodlust.
With the ark-ships' firepower, the void battle would be decided in moments. On the ground, five Primarchs would crush all resistance. Even accounting for that accursed Nameless One, defeat was unthinkable.
Yet Abaddon could not dismiss the variable.
If the Nameless Ones were not neutralized, the outcome remained dangerously uncertain. The man was unpredictable, unkillable, and capable of summoning bizarre allies at will. His mere presence could rally the Imperium and sow terror among Chaos ranks.
He had to be kept occupied — or removed from the board entirely.
At that moment the hatch boomed open. Zaraphiston, Chief Sorcerer, strode onto the bridge, his blasphemous robes billowing.
He approached Abaddon and bowed low.
"Master," he said. "You are troubled by the Nameless Ones?"
Abaddon nodded. "The creature is too unpredictable. Without removing him, the battle for Vigilant Star will spiral into chaos."
Zaraphiston's smile was confident. "We recently acquired a most useful relic. It may solve our problem."
"A holy relic?" Abaddon frowned. "What manner of relic?"
"A temporal null-zone," Zaraphiston replied. "A time-rift left behind by an ancient xenos race of immense power. It can generate a pocket dimension entirely separate from both realspace and the warp — a place with its own flow of time, sealed from all outside influence."
Abaddon's eyes gleamed as he studied the glowing sphere in Zaraphiston's hand.
"If we can lure the Nameless One inside," the sorcerer continued, "he will be trapped beyond escape. When the war begins, we need only find the right moment to deploy it. Even should he possess godlike power, by the time he emerges the conflict on Vigilant Star will already be won."
Abaddon's gaze burned brighter. "You are certain?"
"I have studied the artifact extensively," Zaraphiston affirmed. "We cannot slay the Nameless One, but we can hold him in stasis long enough for victory to be secured."
Abaddon considered for a heartbeat, then nodded.
"Proceed. But see that he remains sealed. No escape."
Zaraphiston bowed deeply. "As you command, Master."
...
Vigilant Star.
Datch stood atop a jagged heap of rubble, eyes fixed on the black smoke rising from the distant Hive-sprawl.
He wore the long coat of a detective and a curious stone hat that subtly eroded his presence, causing most minds to slide past him unnoticed.
His investigation had led him here. Following stolen gene-trails, he and his allies had purged the leadership of the thieving syndicates and driven the survivors from the Red North District all the way to the Renku District.
The Blade Cave sector had once been a mining complex riddled with tunnels and caverns that descended tens of thousands of meters in a labyrinthine maze. Now it had become a festering Hive of gene-thieves and their enslaved victims.
The cunning creatures had bided their time in the dark, growing stronger in secret. They preyed upon any who wandered too deep, slitting throats and dragging the dying into bondage. Over the years their numbers had swollen until they outnumbered the free human population.
When the Great Rift tore open the sky, the gene-stealers seized their moment. They erupted from the depths like a living tide, overwhelming all resistance. Defenders were butchered, officials executed, civilians enslaved and twisted. The Imperium, unable to contain the horror, had simply abandoned the sector.
Now it was a charnel battlefield between rampaging Orks and the gene-stealer hordes. Corpses rose in grotesque hills; rivers of blood carved new channels through the ruins.
Moments after Datch entered the zone, a glowing exclamation mark bloomed on his minimap.
[Objective: Rescue Imperial citizens trapped within the sector. Reward: Experience and credits.]
He followed the marker to the nearest cluster.
A ragged band of refugees huddled inside an abandoned mine shaft, clutching crude weapons. Their lips were split, skin ulcerated, eyes vacant, bodies wasted and malformed. They had survived like cornered animals through the apocalyptic clash of two xenos species.
This was only a fraction of the suffering. Tens of millions of refugees remained trapped across the sector — hidden in rubble, caves, and any crevice that offered shelter. Starving, diseased, hopeless.
Worse, corrupted bloodlines and fourth-generation hybrids moved among them. Any Imperial relief force would risk turning the entire zone into a new genestealer infestation.
Datch approached without drawing attention. He produced a bucket, a multiplier, and a loaf of bread.
…
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