Chapter 25: Daemons of the Warp

Chapter 25: The Warp Demon

“Traitor, your thoughts are as foolish as your mind. What makes you so confident to show your face before me?” Kiliman spoke to the leader of the rebellion. “You could have crawled back to that disgusting Warp before I arrived, but you didn’t. I must admit, I admire your courage, though I also suspect that your mind has completely deteriorated over the long years, given how few good pieces remain in you.”

“You are arrogant, Primarch,” Gullo said, his face darkening.

He never imagined a Primarch could speak such words.

“When you face a bunch of trash, arrogance comes naturally. If your enemies can do nothing to change their miserable fate, why shouldn’t you be arrogant?” Kiliman’s tone was mocking, his voice booming across the battlefield, drawing cheers from the Imperial warriors.

“You will pay the price, Primarch,” Gullo’s sickly green face turned dark with fury, clearly angered by Kiliman’s words.

Anyone hearing themselves called trash would be enraged, even if the speaker were a Primarch.

“I hope you have the power to make me pay the price, but unfortunately, you don’t.”

Kiliman’s words left Gullo speechless. He had never encountered such an insolent Primarch.

Kiliman paid no mind to Gullo’s fury. His soul was far more than just that of the Emperor’s thirteenth son; it was fused with the knowledge and memories of another soul, creating an entirely new Kiliman with a new personality.

When it came to taunting others, not even the Chaos Gods could rival him.

“I hope your strength matches your sharp tongue, Primarch.”

Gullo looked to his lieutenant, whose bulky, helmeted head nodded. Everything was ready.

“You will face the power of the Warp itself. Tremble before it!” Gullo roared.

The earth began to tremble inexplicably.

The air rang with the sound of shattering glass.

Unclean lights poured from the cracks, radiating the utmost malice. Everyone could feel the intense hatred for the real world, a will striving to break free and enter reality.

Crack, crack.

Reality shattered like broken glass, the light of the Empyrean tilting and spilling forth like a flood breaking through a dam.

Nearby Imperial psykers sensed their powers greatly enhanced. The veil between the Warp and reality was torn, benefiting them.

Of course, this boon was fraught with peril.

Should a psyker lose their sanity, they would succumb to corruption by the Warp and become abhorrent monsters.

Rotting and bloated, covered in pustules and tiny tentacles, with a pair of massive horns crowning its swollen head, a demon emerged from the Warp.

Nearly ten meters tall and grotesquely obese, it wielded a rusted greatsword.

Pustules oozed saliva across its bloated flesh, while plagues of flies and filth spirits crawled incessantly from within.

The demon let out a deafening roar. Kiliman could see writhing maggots swarming inside its cavernous mouth.

A truly disgusting demon.

Demons—eternal enemies of the Imperium, eternal foes of humanity—are born of the unnatural energies of the Warp and granted awareness by the dark gods.

They cannot be truly killed; their forms in realspace are mere projections, their true bodies remaining in the Warp.

When slain, they return to the Warp to await rebirth.

Only a handful of weapons or certain formidable psykers can utterly destroy a demon.

Kiliman’s Emperor’s Sword naturally held such power.

When he was resurrected, this very blade killed a traitor who had been transformed into a demon through perverse worship.

The origins of Warp demons are complex, most shaped by the Chaos Gods.

Others arise from the unique worship or particular emotions of various races.

For example, the Curse of Humanity—the only force in the Warp capable of killing the Emperor—was a demon known as the End of the Empire.

The End of the Empire inflicted grievous wounds upon the Emperor during the Webway War, hastening humanity’s collapse.

That battle was among the most unfavorable the Emperor had ever faced in his long life.

He was utterly overwhelmed by the End of the Empire, barely exchanging blows before being severely wounded. Ultimately, he used the loyal Custodes to seal that terrible demon away. The Custodian who bore the sealed demon within himself carried it away from the Webway.

Because of the End of the Empire, the Emperor was later critically wounded by Horus, who was empowered by the dark gods, forcing him to enter the Golden Throne.

The Webway War, the End of the Empire, and maintaining Terra’s reality veil drained the Emperor, leaving him unable to confront the combined assault of the Four Gods.

Fortunately, Saint Gilles, who was brutalized by Horus, left a gap in Horus’s armor with his dying strength.

With the aid of his first Warmaster, Eorl, the Emperor used this opening to slay Horus.

Beyond the End of the Empire, other Warp demons exist outside the Four Gods’ domain.

Among them was the mountain array demon Samus, who nearly destroyed the Emperor’s Fist legion during the Solar System Defense Battle and almost killed the loyalist Loken.

Loken was once Horus’s subordinate and a member of the Council of Four Kings.

On Itari III, refusing to betray the Emperor and humanity’s transcendent dream, he became a target for Horus’s purge.

Leading surviving loyal warriors, he withstood months of assaults from the rebel Primarch Angron, delaying Horus’s rebellion.

Loken’s loyalists who descended to the surface perished in Horus’s orbital bombardment; only he survived.

Samus hunted this traitorous scion under Horus’s orders to demonstrate his resolve to supplant the Emperor, proclaiming his supreme authority and warning the consequences of defying him through Loken’s death.

To protect Loken, the dreamer and female recorder Meseti, who had hoped to preserve humanity’s history by joining the expeditionary forces, sacrificed herself to drive off Samus.

Besides these two, many others like Bilak exist—Warp demons not affiliated with the Chaos Gods.

They form their own factions, often clashing or serving individual dark gods, battling eternally on the warfields.

When the Chaos Gods invade reality, these demons unite with them to harvest human fear, emotion, and souls.

The plague demon, summoned by the Plague Marines and also called the Filth Demon, serves the dark god Nurgle to spread plague into the real world.

“A Primarch??”

The Filth Demon that entered the battlefield immediately spotted Kiliman wielding the Emperor’s Sword.

“A disgusting demon,” Kiliman, still trying to break the traitor’s last defense, looked coldly at the demon emerging from the Warp.

“Perhaps the unhappy Mortarian needs a family,” the Plague Demon smiled at Kiliman. “I can take you back, and Mortarian will be pleased.”

“That fool traitor needs a pyre, and so do you, demon. You still have a chance to crawl back, or I’ll burn you alive,” Kiliman said without mercy.

He suddenly raised the Emperor’s Sword and with a single strike killed the last Plague Marine blocking his path, then stepped forward toward the demon.

(End of chapter)