Chapter 42: You Think I'm a Nobody?! (4/4)

Guilliman looked at the screaming demon, gaining a vague impression of the Emperor's terrifying power.

What the creature feared was not him, but the Emperor who stood behind him. Otherwise, it would not have babbled about being the spawn of the Anathema.

According to Eisenhorn's introduction, Cherubael was a Daemon Prince.

The Warp was unimaginably vast. Even the domains claimed by the Dark Gods, praised as the Lords of Chaos, occupied merely a corner of the immaterium.

Vast regions still did not belong to the Ruinous Powers, instead being dominated by a myriad of lesser daemons and entities.

From the dawn of humanity, religion had emerged, giving birth to primordial deities.

As time progressed, these gods multiplied exponentially.

To take the simplest example, in Greek mythology, from the first generation of creation deities to the third, there were already thousands of gods.

And that was just a single pantheon.

If one combined them all, the number of deities worshipped throughout human history numbered in the tens of thousands.

Thanks to the nature of the Warp, whenever mortals obsessed over a certain concept, a reflection of it would form within the immaterium.

Naturally, these gods were thus born.

As human civilization evolved, faiths constantly shifted; many gods were forgotten and abandoned, some naturally fading into nothingness.

Others transformed into entirely different entities—starving beings that hungered endlessly to harvest flesh and souls, thus becoming known as demons.

Yet, within the long, winding river of galactic history, humanity's millions of years of existence were merely an insignificant drop of water.

Long before humanity was born, countless races had already emerged, possessing their own civilizations and faiths.

Take the species still active today, for instance.

The T'au, who harassed the Imperium on the eastern fringes, worshipped the so-called Greater Good.

The Orks, ruled by warlords, worshipped Gork and Mork.

The Aeldari worshipped Asuryan, Hoec, Cegorach, and so on.

The cultural differences between diverse races were so immense that the gods they forged were utterly distinct.

These deities, once stripped of their worshippers, would be slowly twisted within the Warp, degenerating into hateful daemons.

When Slaanesh awakened, tearing open the fabric of reality to create the Eye of Terror, the Aeldari pantheon also met a terrible doom.

Only Cegorach, the Laughing God, and Isha, the Goddess of Life, managed to survive.

Should the Aeldari ever be utterly annihilated, Cegorach and Isha, stripped of their worshippers and kin, would likewise degenerate into loathsome daemons, growing ever more twisted.

The origins of daemons were manifold, impossible to summarize simply.

No one knew the true origin of Cherubael.

Even Eisenhorn knew very little about the past of this Daemon Prince.

In his youth, while investigating an incident involving a Chaos cult, he had uncovered the spells and rituals used to bind this daemon from a confiscated heretic tome.

In ancient times, a daemonic tribe had crossed from Chaos into the material universe, conquering seven worlds and establishing a kingdom.

After that kingdom fell, the Daemon King was interred within a terrifying tomb, awaiting the day it would be awakened once more.

Eisenhorn had spent centuries tracking this mystery, unravelling several sprawling noble bloodlines tied to the Tome of Death, until he finally cornered and executed the hidden heretic within the Daemon King's tomb, thwarting their conspiracy.

Yet, to the end, he never figured out Cherubael's true origin.

Of course, Guilliman had no intention of listening to the creature's back story. Everything about daemons carried corruption; even listening to their tales ran the risk of being manipulated and controlled by them.

He merely intended to use this Daemon Prince as a tool; there was no need to know where it came from.

In truth, many daemons in the Warp utilized various methods to breach the material universe, infiltrating mortal races to establish their own twisted civilizations.

This was precisely why the Emperor had created the Primarchs; without them, the Imperium of Man could never have been built.

The Emperor could not possibly fight every single war Himself.

Naturally, the Imperium had also nearly perished in the end because of those very Primarchs.

Some liked to complain that the Emperor failed to show enough care for the Primarchs, treating them merely as disposable tools, which ultimately brought about such catastrophe for the Imperium.

Such a perspective ignored reality and was utterly foolish and naive.

The number of things the Emperor had to calculate every second was enough to burn out the Imperium's most advanced cogitator banks.

To conquer and rule a human empire spanning tens of thousands of light-years—one that relied solely on psychic communication and Warp travel to function, devoid of true artificial intelligence—demanded an expenditure of energy beyond anyone's imagination.

Many people could not even recognize everyone living in their own apartment complex, let alone keep track of events in the neighboring town.

How much less, then, could one comprehend events occurring on a planet hundreds of light-years away at any given moment?

The Emperor had to evaluate the utility of every single faction, counter terrifying xenas threats, plot the construction of the Webway, combat the Dark Gods, and do His utmost to maintain the lie of the Imperial Truth.

His time had been squeezed infinitely thin.

Yet, whenever He met each Primarch, He carved out moments from His scarce schedule to converse with them individually, painting visions of humanity's future and promising them glory and reward.

He assessed every Primarch, then interacted with them using the demeanor best suited to their nature.

Upon their very first meeting, He had spent an entire night in deep conversation with Lorgar, hoping the youth would cast aside religion and embrace the Imperial Truth. Yet Lorgar stubbornly ignored His warnings, repeatedly defying Him to persist in spreading faith.

During the Council of Nikaea, following a vote among the Primarchs, the use of psychic powers was forbidden. Yet Magnus secretly flouted the command, eventually shattering the psychic barrier the Emperor had erected within the Imperial Dungeon out of sheer arrogance, dooming the Custodes, the Sisters of Silence, and the armies of the Mechanicus to perish within the Webway.

Angron hated Him for failing to die alongside his gladiator brothers.

Curze believed the Emperor had brought hope, only to make that hope forever unattainable.

The psychologically twisted Perturabo believed he was treated as nothing more than a tool.

Mortarion always felt the Emperor looked down upon him.

Among all the Primarchs, the Emperor chose the safest path: appointing Horus, the one who had accompanied Him the longest, as the Warmaster.

Aside from Alpharius, who lurked in the shadows, Horus was the Primarch who had spent the most time by the Emperor's side.

The Emperor had personally taught him everything, taking him along on the Great Crusade.

Never had He imagined that this very path contained an abyss.

The Emperor's failure was not a lack of humanity, but rather that He placed His trust in human nature. That was His greatest tragedy, and the reason He now suffered endless torment upon the Golden Throne.

He had believed that Horus, who had accompanied Him the longest, could succeed Him to finish the remainder of the Great Crusade, deterring the Chaos Gods from tempting the other Primarchs. Even if any Primarch should rebel, Horus would be there to crush the uprising immediately.

Instead, once wounded, Horus chose outright betrayal.

That was why the Emperor had been so profoundly shocked; He had never expected the traitor to be Horus.

He had believed Horus truly regarded Him as a father, only to discover that Horus simply viewed Him as a tyrant.

Had Chaos corrupted Horus?

No. Horus chose Chaos.

He sought to lay hands upon his father's throne, believing that since he had conquered the galaxy, he should naturally be the one to rule it.

Erebus's promise was simple: sacrifice the Emperor of Mankind, and Horus would be granted boundless power, becoming the new Master of Mankind to rule the galaxy.

Horus, already deeply resentful of the Emperor for diminishing the War Council in favor of the Council of Terra, accepted the bargain.

He decided to sacrifice his own father to become the new Master of Mankind.

Compared to the Emperor, who still sought to redeem Horus even during their final duel,

it was self-evident who possessed more genuine human emotion and who cherished those decades of companionship far more.

The wound had merely given Chaos an opportunity to tempt Horus.

"It seems you recognize me. That saves me a great deal of trouble." Guilliman reined in his wandering thoughts, silently vowing never to hand over power capable of deciding the fate of the entire Imperium to a single individual again, no matter how trustworthy they might seem.

"What do you want, spawn of the Anathema?" Cherubael rasped.

"I need intelligence regarding the Warp, which is why I've come to ask you."

"Then... are you here to make a bargain with me?" Hearing Guilliman's words, a sliver of excitement suddenly flared within the daemon. Bargaining implied corruption; corruption implied damnation. How exquisite it would be if a spawn of the Anathema were to fall!

"I am the Lord Commander of the Imperium. I never bargain with anyone. Whatever I require, others offer to me as tribute." Guilliman stepped closer to Cherubael. "So I suggest you be wise, swear your loyalty to me, and provide me with the intelligence I seek."

Cherubael: ಠ_ಠ

Being the Lord Commander of the Imperium makes you so special? You roll up and demand my absolute loyalty and servitude right off the bat?

Did you take this Daemon Prince for some petty grunt?!