Chapter 44: The Threat Brought by Magnus

Chapter 44: The Threat Brought by Magnus

"Betrayal, isn't that your daemons' specialty?" Guilliman said.

"You need not think you can so easily fool and control me, son of the Anathema."

Cherubael shrieked.

Guilliman showed no mercy whatsoever, striking him again with a heavy blow that sent the creature crashing against the wall, wailing in agonizing pain.

Following that, with a single sweep of his sword, he severed one of Cherubael's arms.

The power of the Anathema was burning away the daemon's very essence. Like a scorching brand, it tortured him without a moment's respite.

Just as Guilliman prepared to carve yet more scars into his flesh,

Cherubael yielded. Screaming in terror, he cried out, "My master!"

Under Guilliman's watchful gaze, Cherubael uttered the true name of another daemon—one who might possess knowledge of the current state of the warp.

He also provided the ritual needed to bind that entity.

All to buy Guilliman's forgiveness.

Over the long millennia, as a Daemon Prince, Cherubael had inevitably acquired a wealth of useful information.

Learning the true name of a daemon was not an unimaginable feat for him.

"You know how to survive, at least." Guilliman withdrew the Emperor's Sword and turned to Vinsenhorn. "Can you summon the daemon he spoke of, Inquisitor?"

"With the true name and the proper rituals, that should not be difficult," Vinsenhorn replied.

For an Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus, lore concerning the daemons of the warp was a mandatory subject of study.

With Vinsenhorn's assistance, another daemon—one unbound by the four Chaos Gods—was summoned forth.

Accompanied by a wave of freezing chill and the nauseating stench of sulfur,

A daemon with a ferocious visage, twin horns upon its brow, a body covered in black feathers, and cloven hooves appeared.

Before the creature could even speak, Vinsenhorn invoked the ritual, sealing the daemon directly into a mortal host vessel.

"Mortal, you have incurred my wrath!" the summoned daemon shrieked.

"You talk too much." Guilliman grabbed the entity by the head and slammed it violently into the floor.

The daemon shrieked.

At its cry, terrible tremors wracked the warp, attempting to obliterate every soul within the dungeon.

Yet Guilliman would not allow it to succeed.

A Primarch's strength was terrifying enough to tear down Titans.

Overwhelmed by the crushing aura of dominion and the divine power radiating from the Emperor's Sword, the daemon was beaten down. As the blade pressed against its form, searing humiliating runes into its flesh, the entity finally surrendered.

"Ask, son of the Anathema. I can answer five of your questions. Whatever lies within my knowledge, I shall tell you."

The summoned daemon let out a wretched, miserable sound.

It spoke in overlapping, discordant voices, tears of black agony streaming down its face.

To be enslaved by humanity, coupled with the torment inflicted by the Emperor's power, caused it double the suffering.

"Tell me, where are my traitor brothers?" Guilliman demanded.

"Lorgar, Perturabo, and Fulgrim are within the Eye of Terror," the daemon answered. "Mortarion dwells in the realm of the Plague Lord, and Angron fights for the Master of War and Blood upon the eternal battlefields."

"And Magnus?" Guilliman pressed, zeroing in on the most insidious of the traitor Primarchs.

"He has left the Eye of Terror; none know his exact whereabouts. Rumor has it that he intends to move against his brother—that is you, son of the Anathema, the only active son remaining." The daemon wheezed, the immense agony driving it to the brink of madness as its body convulsed.

Guilliman fell silent.

Mortarion had not yet struck, but Magnus was already making his move?

What would he do? Would he cast him into the Maelstrom just as in the original timeline?

"How do I control it?" Guilliman turned his gaze to the bound Cherubael, asking in a low, cold voice.

"Carve the scriptures of the Anathema into his heart, and he will bow beneath your feet, serving you."

"No!" shrieked the daemon in absolute terror.

"Is what he says true?" Guilliman asked in the quiet of his own mind.

[It is true. The prayers of your father may very well destroy that daemon, and only your willpower can spare it from total annihilation. If it does not wish for eternal oblivion, it will have no choice but to submit to your feet.]

Having received the confirmation of his auxiliary spirit, Guilliman verified it with Vinsenhorn, and finding no objections, he set to work.

He cleaved open the daemon's chest and etched the ecclesiarchal hymns praising the Emperor directly into its heart.

"I require more intelligence, daemon. Do not disappoint me, or you shall be cast into absolute oblivion."

With those words, Guilliman cast the entity back into the warp.

"Contain him and have him transferred to the *Macragge's Honour*. I need to extract more information regarding the warp from him. Vinsenhorn, you are responsible for guarding him. Should it become necessary, kill him."

Guilliman looked to Vinsenhorn, finalizing the arrangements for Cherubael.

Guilliman remained upon the world of Thalassa for two full weeks, then departed alongside Vinsenhorn and the golden sarcophagus containing Cherubael, setting a course for the Konor System.

Before leaving, he formally appointed Covenant as a Grand Inquisitor, granting him the authority to audit the plans of other Inquisitors and the power to demand explanations for their actions. Should they fail to comply, Covenant held the right to strip them of all official duties.

Furthermore, Covenant would report directly to him, submitting regular intelligence reports for the Primarch's personal review.

Guilliman was well aware that over the long span of ten millennia, the Inquisition had made countless contributions, foiling innumerable plots.

Yet, as time eroded their founding ideals, those wielders of immense authority had gradually corrupted.

They employed all manner of methods to amass vast fortunes, engaged in various hidden heresies, and sometimes even intentionally cultivated heresies merely to eradicate them later for personal glory and expanded power.

An inquisitor like Vinsenhorn, who maintained his integrity, had instead become an anomaly.

Having reorganized the chaotic regulatory system of the Inquisition and integrated them into his grand blueprint for reform, Guilliman departed.

The deep-seated systemic flaws of the Inquisition had accumulated over ages and could not be purged overnight, nor could they be slashed away too drastically without causing the Imperium to bleed to death.

It required a slow, measured approach, rectifying the institution hand-in-hand with new laws and new ideologies.

Standing upon the deck of the *Macragge's Honour*,

Guilliman contemplated the road ahead.

Mortarion and Magnus would soon make their moves against him, and he had to prepare appropriate countermeasures.

Magnus excelled in psychic mastery; that was his sole advantage.

As for his grand schemes, they were hardly worth mentioning—they relied entirely on the information asymmetry between the warp and realspace to project an air of impenetrable mystery.

To put it bluntly, the fellow was somewhat clever, but not overly so.

The true threat posed by Magnus lay in his sorcery and that very same information asymmetry regarding the warp.

Just as in the original timeline, striking unawares the moment he emerged from the warp to hurl them into the Maelstrom—

Who could endure such a blow?

Guilliman had no way of knowing when the creature would launch his ambush, otherwise he could have formulated a more precise strategy.

Mortarion, on the other hand, was relatively straightforward.

Aside from spreading plagues, that brain could conjure up no other tricks.

Plagues could rarely be deployed as sudden, utterly unpredictable lightning strikes, which afforded Guilliman precious time to react.

The only real trouble was Magnus.

"Information is severely lacking," Guilliman sighed. Humanity had always occupied a position of weakness when confronting the warp.

And the greatest peril in fighting the warp was the constant terror of corruption.

The most nauseating aspect of the warp could be boiled down to a single truth:

If you do not fight, you lose.

If you do fight, you still lose.

The sheer threat of corruption alone made it an almost insoluble dilemma.

*Should I resurrect the Webway Project?* A thought fluttered through Guilliman's mind.

The Emperor had already tried nearly every viable method.

Establish a pan-human consciousness collective? Isn't that precisely what the Emperor is now?

Establish a new religion to counter Chaos? Isn't that what the Ecclesiarchy became?

The only plan left untouched by complete implementation was the construction of the Webway to permanently sever humanity from the warp.

After pondering for a moment, Guilliman dismissed the notion.

The Chaos Gods would never permit such a thing; the moment he revealed an intention to mend the Webway, they would instantly unite against him.

If he failed, what then? Would he be forced to seat himself upon the Golden Throne? If he refused, a second Eye of Terror would erupt, and the entire world would belong to the daemons.

Or perhaps emulate the Protoss of StarCraft and establish a communal psi-link like the Khala?

Forget it. The moment a single individual was corrupted, everyone would be dragged down together.

The Khala was hardly foolproof; it was infiltrated later on, nearly leading to the subjugation of the entire Protoss race.

If humanity tried that, the end would be far more desolate.

Think as he might, Guilliman could not conceive of a foolproof method to combat warp corruption.

At that moment, Sicarius approached.

"My Lord, the latest intelligence: the House of Groux in the Natars System has issued a manifesto declaring your reforms of the Imperial system null and void. They proclaim they will obey only the institutions left behind by the Divine Emperor."