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[Ding! Mission Complete]
[Host has successfully witnessed the Fall of Cadia and participated in the Defense of Cadia]
[Reward Points: 130,000]
Kaelen leaned against the trembling, scorching tal bulkhead. The six-digit number flashing across his retina didn't make his heart beat one bit faster.
Through the blast-proof glass riddled with cracks, the fortress world that had forged countless iron-blooded soldiers of the Imperium was being erased from existence.
The planetary core had been shattered. Scalding crimson magma gushed from crisscrossing abyssal rifts. Continental plates buckled and overturned, swallowing the un-evacuated fortresses, the gun turrets, and the corpses of tens of thousands of Imperial soldiers along with them.
This was an apocalypse without suspense.
Still, the numbers gave Kaelen so comfort.
Cadia had originally held 850 million souls. Under Creed's forceful orders and the desperate salvage runs of every fleet in range, over 100 million people had cramd onto interstellar transports and escaped that shattered hell.
Compared to the pitiful few million survivors he'd known about, that was an astronomical difference.
Kaelen tilted his head back and exhaled a long breath of stale air, forcing the weight out of his lungs.
He had no ti for mourning.
When the transport docked with Archmagos Cawl's flagship, the Iron Soul, the bridge was even more chaotic than the assault boat had been. Hundreds of servitors shuttled between computation arrays, and piercing overload alarms shrieked without pause.
Kaelen found the Archmagos imdiately.
"Archmagos Cawl. I need to speak with you."
"Now is hardly the ti for conversation, Captain."
Cawl was coordinating the fleet, preparing to evacuate the Cadian system.
"This concerns our fate. And the fate of the Lord of Ultramar. I know you have a gift aboard this ship ant for Roboute Guilliman."
Kaelen kept his voice low and urgent.
A flicker of surprise passed through Cawl's bionic eyes. That this re mortal knew of his arrangent with Guilliman was unexpected.
But this was also the man who had brought Warmaster Horus into this era and earned the support of the Living Saint Celestine. Cawl buried his doubts.
"Speak."
"The Despoiler's prophetic sorcerers have already divined that you're carrying sothing aboard this ship that threatens them. He will pursue you like a madman. On your current flight path, this ship will never reach Macragge."
Cawl furrowed his brow and ran a rapid tactical simulation. Monts later, he conceded the mortal's conclusion had a viable basis.
"Then what do you suggest, Captain Kaelen?"
"We go to a frozen planet in the Cadian System. Klaisus."
"Klaisus?"
Cawl stared at him as though he'd lost his mind.
Abandoning perfectly functional Warp travel to make for the surface of that planet, what was the difference between that and suicide?
Before the argunt could unfold, the heavy isolation door on the far side of the bridge ground open.
Pure, blazing golden light flooded the dim bridge.
The Living Saint Celestine strode in. The complete rupture of the Eye of Terror had torn a terrible Great Rift across the galaxy, but it had also sent the concentration of psychic energy in real-space surging exponentially. Freed from the suppression of the Blackstone matrix, Celestine had not rely recovered her power. The sacred flas wreathing her burned even fiercer than they had during the fighting on the ground.
But the figures following behind her were no longer the two Geminae Superia.
Instead, it was a woman whose expression was dark enough to curdle milk.
Grand Inquisitor Katarina Greyfax.
The Grand Inquisitor was here to supervise the Living Saint. In Greyfax's eyes, Celestine stood only a single step from corruption, and she intended to keep a constant, vigilant watch.
"Archmagos. Great Archmagos." Celestine's voice was serene. "I bring an oracle from the God-Emperor. We shall find salvation upon Klaisus."
The sa words again. Cawl found himself genuinely weighing whether the proposal was sound.
Greyfax scoffed.
"Utterly absurd! We must conduct Warp travel. This so-called oracle is nothing but self-deception. You are leading us to the brink of destruction, witch!"
"The Chaos fleet will target us!"
"Their bombardnt could destroy the Iron Soul's Gellar Field. Don't forget — the enemy has a Blackstone Fortress and a Gloriana-class battleship out there. Inquisitor, trust the Living Saint."
Kaelen had no desire to waste further words. He stated his position plainly and backed Celestine.
He knew exactly how overbearing and fanatical this Inquisitor was. This woman was genuinely the type who would have you declared a heretic and put down if you annoyed her enough. But the situation was urgent, and he had no better play.
Reaching Klaisus ahead of ti would reduce unnecessary casualties. That was all that mattered.
The Grand Inquisitor's eyes snapped to him. She hadn't expected this ordinary, unfamiliar captain to show her such open disrespect. She was drawing breath to demand an accounting when Archmagos Cawl cut her off.
"Fine. Since the two of you are so insistent on Klaisus, I have already calculated the optimal survival probability. I agree to the ergency landing proposal."
"Archmagos! What are you doing!"
"I am doing what I believe to be correct. The Omnissiah has spoken. We follow the oracle."
Cawl ignored her protests and leaned close to her ear.
"Grand Inquisitor. Do not think I cannot see the shackle the Endless implanted within you. Support my decision, and afterward I will use my technology to purge the backdoor program that wretched xenos left inside your body."
It was a bargaining chip that was impossible to refuse.
Greyfax's jaw tightened. She took half a step back and said nothing more.
With internal resistance cleared, the Archmagos moved without hesitation. He opened the ship-wide broadcast.
"Course paraters changed. All power units, disengage Warp engine pre-heating. Transfer all energy to the stern thrusters."
"Coordinates: Klaisus."
-----------
Aboard the Vengeful Spirit.
With the Blackstone Spire destroyed, Warp energy flooded back into Abaddon's body, and his wounds began to slowly knit closed. He breathed hard, his mind replaying the battle against his gene-father over and over.
The era of the Primarchs may have passed.
Then again, perhaps it hadn't.
And more to the point — this particular Primarch was his own gene-father.
"Still." Abaddon smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "He won't be having an easy ti of it either."
"Father. Do not think that by defeating , you have won the Imperium's support. The na of the great traitor cannot be washed clean."
"I can already picture it. The Inquisition. The Astartes Chapters. All of them hunting you down." He laughed, low and dark. "Hahaha."
The Despoiler poured a asure of strong sulfur-wine into a goblet crafted from the skull of Fabius's Horus clone, and raised it in a toast, drinking to his father's death from a cup made of another ancient enemy's remains.
The red light of Cadia was faint as a needlepoint in the void. In just a single day, it had already begun to succumb to the baleful influence of the Eye of Terror.
Before the war, Abaddon had decided that if the tectonic forces he unleashed didn't destroy it first, this place would have made a perfect Daemon World. Now, none of that seed to matter. After a thousand years of preparation, the Crimson Path had been paved for him.
The only question was whether this path could lead him to Terra before the galaxy tore itself apart.
Even that, sohow, seed of little consequence.
The strategium doors rumbled open. Zaraphiston crossed the rusted deck and ca to stand at Abaddon's side.
"My lord Abaddon. Why do we not pursue?"
"The loyalists are already defeated. Let the dregs of the fleet gnaw at their heels. They are unworthy of more." He swirled the wine in his skull-cup. "As for my father, Horus Lupercal — the Imperium will deal with him for . Heh."
"I have achieved the strategic objective of the Thirteenth Black Crusade."
The sorcerer walked to the viewing window and fixed his gaze on the red orb of Cadia, staring at the Crimson Path.
"But there is a ship carrying sothing precious."
Abaddon scoffed. "There is nothing on the Phalanx worth ntioning."
Zaraphiston's third eye blinked slowly. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"I speak not of the Phalanx. It is the Ark chanicus. Within its stasis-vault lies a relic."
Unease pricked at Abaddon's heart.
"What did you see? What has your divination told you?"
Zaraphiston spoke a na.
"Roboute Guilliman. Soon to return."
The skull goblet slipped from Abaddon's hand and shattered on the deck.
(At the great convergence on Cadia, after Brother Abaddon killed the clone Horus, he really did use old Horus's skull as a goblet. Can I interpret this as a form of extre father-complex?)
➤ Next: Would Guilliman Form a Marriage Alliance?
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