Chapter 43: Guilliman's Permanent Trait: Tardiness

The Glorious Macragge and the Regent's fleet were about to emerge from the warp ahead.

This was the result of two Chaos sorcerers personally praying to the Changer of Ways.

When that time came, the Word Bearers would use the foul springs of Colchis to shroud Guilliman. The raven keeping watch in the shadows would then hesitate.

Even lowering its vigilance toward the true master of the Word Bearers.

However, hundreds of Terran hours later, the pool of filthy water had completely polluted the asteroid, yet there was still no sign of the Glorious Macragge arriving.

So much so that this squad of Word Bearers, who had ventured into the material world at great peril, cast suspicious gazes upon the two Chaos sorcerers.

Glae Sneane, the squad leader and one of the Blessed Sons, shifted his power armor and walked toward Javun.

"I'm afraid the Changer of Ways has toyed with us once more. Kor Phaeron hasn't given us much time, and I certainly don't want to be stabbed by that dagger he carries. Javun, tell us the real time."

Glae's power armor could not even be called truly corrupted, yet it retained numerous open interfaces, seemingly prepared for some kind of transformation state.

A hawthorn-red paint finish formed across various parts of the power armor, which was then covered in scriptures written in golden letters.

"It looks a lot like food packaging. I've heard Slaanesh loves writing purity seals all over everything."

This was the evaluation of his human wetware appearance made by Leblanc, the daemon residing within Glae.

The so-called Blessed Sons were possessed marines, capable of freely switching between human and daemon forms.

The drawback was that if the human died, the daemon would perish alongside them rather than returning to the warp.

Of course, all the first-generation Blessed Sons had long since been slaughtered by the Custodes and even greater shadows of the warp.

By Glae's generation, the relationship between the warriors and the daemons within them was no longer quite so harmonious.

The sorcerer Javun rubbed his withered arms. His features were handsome, yet they contrasted sharply with the skin below his neck as he muttered gloomily from within his ragged hood:

"The Changer of Ways has His own designs. He personally prophesied the meeting of Lorgar and Guilliman. Therefore, your master shall inevitably be freed."

Glae fell silent. If the Changer of Ways had personally spoken to this Chaos sorcerer, he indeed had no grounds for doubt.

Javun seized the opportunity to mock him:

"You are a Blessed Son, yet Kor Phaeron is merely a cobbled-together creature who cannot even be truly called an Astartes. Why fear him?"

Glae clenched his fists, his tone turning repulsive:

"There is no need to sow discord among those of us who share the same faith. Just do what you are supposed to do."

Squish—

A crisp sound of a foot stepping into water echoed, and Glae's keen Astartes hearing instantly caused him to look toward the source.

There was nothing there.

Impossible. His sharp intuition had helped him escape countless life-or-death crises; there was no way his judgment could be wrong.

"Word Bearers brothers! Prepare for battle!"

As one of the few traitor legions that maintained a complete legionary structure, the Word Bearers still consisted primarily of countless warrior brothers.

One could even say that aside from their religious divergence, they looked no different from Imperial Astartes.

So much so that at the very beginning of the betrayal, some Word Bearers who clearly utilized Chaos sorcery could still feign normalcy and fight alongside the Ultramarines against the Orks.

At that time, the equivalent of mortal commissars within the Ultramarines were either entirely offline or simply far too oblivious.

Otherwise, how could they have dared to cooperate with these "brothers" who had knelt before their father just moments prior, who undoubtedly harbored resentment in their hearts, and who already looked entirely wrong.

The Chaos sorcerers possessed no such vigilance. Tzeentch had spoken, and the future would only unfold toward the exact outcome decreed by the Holy Tzeentch.

Why be so anxious?

Perhaps it was merely some minor Chaos energy that had fallen from the corrupt mountains, manifesting a shattered form upon its first arrival in the material world.

It was merely moving, and because it lacked a foothold in reality, it would shatter instantly.

Splash!

A burst of water erupted, and this time, the traces of the splash were seen by everyone.

Glae was already roaring, reaching out to slap the waist of his power armor, ready at any moment to unleash the daemon within and transform into a possessed warrior.

Javun still sensed no danger, looking toward his taciturn companion and chuckling in a low voice:

"These Space Marines are always so paranoid. The so-called warrior's intuition? Heh, in the face of the grand currents driven by absolute grand strategy, any warrior can only bow before fate."

Boom!

This time, it was a massive wave of water that rose, accompanied by the huge ripples of something being hurled forward, crashing toward the group.

That transcendent entity was wading through the filthy spring water, and judging by the size of the waves it generated, it was almost identical in scale to a Primarch.

This caused Glae's initial vigilance to slacken ever so slightly.

Finally, everyone caught sight of a bald giant wearing only a soaked robe, his height nearly reaching the scale of two Astartes stacked together.

"It is Lorgar! He has successfully broken free from the bonds of the shadow!"

Javun cried out, joy overflowing across his features:

"The prophecies of the Changer of Ways are never betrayed by fate! Now, welcome your Primarch, and wait for the abominable ships of the Empire to emerge from the warp so we may deal them a crushing blow!"

Meanwhile, his companion, the Chaos sorcerer Dhulun Bek, who was always taciturn, pulled Javun behind him while stepping back slightly himself to prepare a teleportation spell.

Something was wrong. The Master of the Word Bearers had already ascended; he should not possess such a primitive, low-level posture.

Rumble!

When the next wave rose, the figure of the Primarch abruptly appeared behind the Word Bearers, striking out with a punch that reduced Javun to a pulp of flesh. Before the second punch could be thrown, Dhulun teleported away.

He even decisively abandoned the sorcery used to guide the corrupted asteroid toward the Glorious Macragge, which was about to enter the material world.

Only then did the figure of the Primarch slowly turn around, gazing at everything before him.

More than ten thousand years ago, Colchis.

Lorgar, who had single-handedly beaten down all the corrupted guards, scrutinized his gradually hallucinatory field of vision.

The colors rolled like thick, highly diluted mixtures, green tinged with yellow, yellow tinged with red, an utterly chaotic mess.

Several blurred warriors clad in bizarre armor were staring in his direction.

Then Lorgar felt someone land on his shoulder, and his consciousness snapped back to reality.

It was his brother, who had just climbed onto his shoulder from the side. At this moment, the hot spring water was no longer scalding.

"Hey, Lorgar, your eyes were glowing just now. I was worried something might be wrong with you."

Aaron said thoughtfully, reaching out to peel back Lorgar's eyelids to observe closely.

Lorgar calmly replied:

"It is nothing, brother. It was merely that abominable daemon inflicting such a disaster, attempting to corrupt me."

He walked toward the ground with Aaron on his shoulders:

"I seemed to witness a bizarre perspective just now, plunging into the void. But you need not worry that I will be corrupted."

Aaron breathed a sigh of relief, instinctively resting his arm on Lorgar's bald head:

"I'm not worried about that. I was just afraid you'd get hurt. Who knows what kind of insidious plots those disgusting things are hatching."

"Haah—how strange, I'm meeting you through a dream, but why, even in a dream, do I feel—"

"So sleepy—"

Clang!

Aaron's bald head bumped against Lorgar's, and he fell fast asleep.

The next moment, the surrounding tranquil environment began to warp, and the brilliant sunlight that had just appeared in the sky was swallowed by an endless, dark starry expanse.

A massive purple-black vortex flashed violently, and several metal warships resembling the sky itself sailed forth from it, accompanied by countless smaller vessels moving at even greater speeds to protect the capital ships.

These scenes unfolded not far from where Lorgar looked up, and Aaron, who had been on his shoulder, had vanished entirely.

The sound of clanking metal came from behind, and those warriors seen moments before dropped to one knee.

The leader among them lowered his head and reached out, begging for his response:

"My lord, guiding light of faith, voice of the holy word—though merely a psychic projection, the Word Bearers humbly welcome your return."

"Kor Phaeron and Erebus are colluding within their respective factions. Our faith must remain united, not divided."