Under Abaddon's arrangements, it did not take long for everyone in the Sixteenth Legion with any real authority who was not out on campaign or otherwise occupied to gather.
The total was not large. At most, only six people came: three members of the Mournival, and three company captains.
Once Bruce announced that Horus's condition had been fully stabilized, the Sixteenth Legion slowly began to claw its way back out of chaos. If they had previously been a pile of scattered sand, then now they were at least a single, somewhat solid stone.
Of course, if they wanted to recover their former effectiveness, they would still need Horus himself to wake up.
As long as Horus awoke, the Sixteenth Legion could steady itself again, resume the Great Crusade, and continue brushing aside the various orders coming from the Council of Terra.
Otherwise, a legion led by a half-dead Horus would only continue to decay. In fact, it might even lose its legion status altogether, leaving the proud Sons of Horus reduced to serving under other legions.
"Hm? Why is one person missing?" Bruce frowned as he looked over the participants.
Had it not been said there would be seven representatives from the Sons of Horus? Why were there only six?
His own side was unchanged as ever: Warfarin and Alfred. Though he had no idea why Warfarin had suddenly become so clingy and insisted on following him everywhere, if she wanted to tag along, then fine.
The Dark Angels were even more straightforward. Lion had come alone again, and was adamant about sitting beside Bruce. No one could persuade her otherwise, even though the seat of honor should clearly have belonged to her.
After all, among all three parties present, she was the one with the greatest authority. Compared to her, even Abaddon counted as a minor figure.
"Garviel Loken is still on his way back," Torgaddon explained.
"I want to know where he went," Bruce said. He cared rather a lot about the Last Luna Wolf.
If Loken was not present, then in Bruce's eyes, this meeting deciding Horus's future was not worth holding at all.
It was like a surgery without the family signing the consent form. No matter how good the doctor was, who would dare go ahead?
"He's still on Davin, investigating something," Abaddon said disdainfully.
Bruce raised an eyebrow.
It had been this long, and Loken was still the only one investigating the problem on Davin? What kind of ramshackle circus was the Sixteenth Legion running?
"Still, Loken sent word that we needn't wait for him," Torgaddon added. "He said the meeting can begin."
"No. I'm waiting for him," Bruce said flatly.
"Why?" Little Horus demanded. "Shouldn't our father matter more right now? Whether he's here or not, would that really affect your treatment plan?"
"Silence."
Lion shot him a cold sideways glance.
Little Horus nearly snapped to attention on the spot.
After months of shutting himself away, he had finally remembered that the one speaking now was not his beloved father, but the Lion—the Primarch of the First Legion, notorious for her bizarre temper.
Horus might indulge Little Horus. Lion absolutely would not. If she felt like it, she could flatten him like a boiled egg.
"Bruce is the one who called this meeting. He saved your father, and he saved your entire Sixteenth Legion. I do not wish to hear a second person speak to him so disrespectfully."
"And I do not intend to repeat myself."
Her tone was low, but there was unmistakable menace in it. It was less a statement than a threat, but when backed by absolute strength, that tended to be the most persuasive kind.
The Sons of Horus might have been unhappy, but they still nodded. They had no choice but to accept Lion's words and abide by them.
"There. You may continue," Lion said to Bruce with a smile.
Nobody said a word.
No one missed the speed of that expression shift, but no one was foolish enough to comment on it either.
Best not to dig too deeply. The Lion might remember it.
Bruce nodded, secretly pleased.
Ah, yes. He might be only a humble Acting Commander, but having someone powerful backing you up felt incredible.
Depend on parents at home, friends out in the world. The ancients truly had known what they were talking about.
As for the treatment plan itself, it could actually be explained in a sentence or two. But the matter required unanimous consent from the Sixteenth Legion.
That was why Bruce had stubbornly insisted on waiting for Loken.
Several hours later, Loken finally arrived in haste. The moment he saw the solemn atmosphere in the room, he understood at once.
"My apologies for making everyone wait."
He was carrying a box.
"It's fine," Bruce said, helping smooth things over. "The meeting couldn't have properly started without everyone present anyway. You were carrying out a mission. That's normal."
"Yes, sir." Loken was visibly grateful.
But instead of walking toward the Sons of Horus, Loken went straight to Bruce and opened the special sealed case in his hands.
Inside lay a strange ritual dagger made of what looked like chipped flint.
"So that's the blade that stabbed the Warmaster?" Bruce remembered it very clearly. Back when his "chicken wrap" had snapped and he himself had collapsed, this was the blade he had seen.
Of course, what he had seen then had been the dagger under the filter of Nurgle's corruption. Without that layer of foul power, it actually looked crude and unimpressive.
Still, its background was anything but ordinary.
It had originally belonged to an alien civilization, which had later been defeated by the human interstellar polity known as the Interex. The Interex had confiscated and sealed it away.
Long ago, Horus had held diplomatic talks with the Interex, hoping to resolve matters peacefully and persuade them to join the Imperium, even promising not to pursue the issue of their cooperation with xenos.
To make that happen, Horus had clashed fiercely with the Council of Terra more than once.
Everything had been going well—until the dagger was stolen.
The Interex assumed Horus's people had taken it, and war broke out as a result. That incident had been a humiliating slap in the face for Horus, and Terra had never let him forget it. The rift between them had only widened from there.
"Yes," Loken said. "This is the blade that wounded the Warmaster. Four years ago, the war with the Interex began precisely because it vanished."
"And now it showed up on Davin. And just happened to be the weapon used to wound him. Quite the coincidence, isn't it?"
Bruce remembered the dagger's lore, and wanted as little to do with it as possible.
Even if it now looked like a perfectly ordinary ritual knife, who knew whether traces of Nurgle's power still lingered inside? Combined with its anti-human properties, it was trouble he had no desire to touch.
After what he had done to Nurgle last time, he was certain that petty little god would retaliate if given half a chance.
"Hah. The cursed Interex is already destroyed. What use is saying any of this now?" Abaddon said dismissively.
In Abaddon's eyes, the negotiations with the Interex had been a mistake from the start. Those humans had chosen to coexist with xenos—already an unforgivable flaw. And yet the Warmaster had actually been willing to accept them?
So when the talks broke down, and the Interex accused the Imperium of theft, Abaddon had been furious. His answer had been simple: kill them all.
That sentiment was not unique to him, either. It had been the majority opinion among the Sons of Horus.
"No, no, no," Bruce said. "You can't just stare at the surface, Captain Abaddon."
He looked across the gathered Sons of Horus. "Haven't you realized it yet? This was all part of a plot against the Warmaster. And it began a long time ago."
"The Xenobia negotiations four years ago were already part of the setup. Don't you find that terrifying?"
"The dagger really was stolen by someone from the Imperium. But why steal it? And why leave such obvious evidence that it had been stolen? Hard to guess, isn't it?"
At that point, even an idiot could understand what Bruce was implying.
Everyone fell silent.
And the more they thought about it, the more horrifying it became.
Hell.
There was a traitor.
Someone inside the Imperium had been targeting the Warmaster.
"So someone opposed our father? Someone wanted him dead? Who?" Abaddon roared, slamming his hand on the table.
"Why are you shouting?" Bruce snapped right back.
Abaddon's momentum collapsed instantly.
"Lord Bruce… do you know something?" Torgaddon asked darkly.
If Horus survived, then the next thing Torgaddon intended to do was settle accounts.
Every last one of them.
Anyone who had plotted against the Warmaster—anyone who had arranged his assassination—would pay.
"Let's set that aside for now," Bruce said. "The fact that you've all understood the implication is enough."
That's more like it. What was the point of obsessing over how to save Horus? The real question was how to save humanity and the Imperium.
"Captain Loken, put that away for now," Bruce said, gesturing toward the case. "Take your seat. You've done good work collecting evidence. You've saved me a lot of trouble."
"Yes, sir."
Loken shut the box, hugged it to his chest, and returned to the others.
At that moment, the timeline itself shifted.
Loken no longer had to stand opposed to his brothers. He no longer had to torment himself over whether to resort to forbidden ritualism to save his father.
Now, all he had to do was sit down, hear the proposed treatment plan, and help carry it out.
"And with that… we begin," Bruce said.
There was no doubt that, as the attending physician, Bruce had earned the trust of the Sons of Horus. But trust was not yet the same as proof.
This was what Loken had provided. That was why Bruce had insisted on waiting. No wonder Loken was called the Last Luna Wolf. Out of the entire dysfunctional Sixteenth Legion, he was the only one who had truly been doing his job.
Bruce pressed the prepared switch.
A holo-display rose into the air, projecting the unconscious Horus and a stream of medical readouts.
"First, I need to make one thing clear. Your father—our Warmaster—has, in terms of his physical body, entered a stable condition. He's a Primarch. His regenerative abilities are extraordinary."
"But physical injury is not the problem anymore. The real issue is something far more important: his soul."
"The Warmaster's soul has been damaged. Vast portions of it are missing outright. This is not something that can be solved through ordinary medical technology."
"Then what if we send the Warmaster back to Holy Terra?" Torgaddon asked. "Surely the Emperor could save him?"
"He probably wouldn't last that long," Bruce said, shaking his head. "His soul is still leaking away. Think of it like a punctured balloon. It may still hold air for now, but eventually it will go flat."
"And at this point, would you really dare send him through the warp? Don't forget—his soul is in a compromised state. If something foul takes advantage of that during the voyage, then you're done."
Perhaps the Emperor could have saved Horus. But getting him to Terra alive was the problem. Davin was far too far from Holy Terra. Horus simply would not endure the trip.
"So what is your treatment plan, then?" Little Horus asked cautiously.
"That," Bruce said, "is exactly what I was about to explain."
He moved to the next slide.
A blue-and-white round-headed robotic cat appeared in the projection.
"?"
Everyone stared at it blankly.
What in the world was that? Some kind of alien?
"This," Bruce said, "is a universal machine-intelligence from the Dark Age of Technology. He is loyal, and possessed of a sacred machine spirit. He is not an Abominable Intelligence."
For some reason, people reacted even more violently to anything resembling forbidden AI than they did to xenos or Chaos combined. It seemed to be built into them at the deepest level.
"He possesses certain pieces of prohibited technology from humanity's golden age. There is a chance he can save the Warmaster."
"Though I understand your concerns, and I know you may question whether such technology would endanger him, this is still far more in line with the Imperial Truth than witchcraft, is it not?"
"Finally, I have one other fallback option."
He moved to the next slide.
"I also possess a prohibited technological device capable of sending the Warmaster back to Holy Terra immediately. But it carries certain risks."
"I think we should try it," Loken said at once. "The Warmaster's life matters more."
Compared to sorcery, technology felt far more trustworthy to Loken. It aligned with the Imperial Truth. And if Bruce said it came from the Dark Age of Technology, then at least it was humanity's own work, however dangerous. That still put it leagues above alien artifacts or arcane ritualism.
"I agree," Torgaddon said. "We should try."
"Then how exactly would this work?" Little Horus asked carefully.
"I would contact him and ask for his advice," Bruce replied. "However, the actual treatment process is not something you'll be able to witness."
Little Horus hesitated.
If they were barred from observing the treatment, then what if something went wrong? What if the Warmaster deteriorated during the procedure?
"But I should say this now," Bruce continued. "I may be able to save the Warmaster. But I cannot promise I'll return exactly the same Warmaster you remember."
Everyone stared at him.
"I mean," Bruce clarified awkwardly, "I can give you back a complete Warmaster. I just can't guarantee he'll be exactly the same majestic, overbearing Warmaster you're all used to."
When Bruce glanced toward Lion, the confused worry on the Sons of Horus' faces vanished almost instantly.
They all nodded in understanding.
Got it.
"Fine. Then it's settled. Prepare to begin treatment," Lion declared, taking the role of family representative and bringing the matter to a close. "Bruce, my brother is in your hands."
"No problem," Bruce said with a nod.
And so, at last…
Doraemon, please help me.
Join here to read ahead.
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Supernatural Multiverse 27
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