Under the influence of the storm, the Warp tsunami surged with more unknown lifeforms, crashing upon the human fleets like massive waves, one after another.
The Lord Regent's fleet struggled forward through this tide, but the storm was overwhelming.
...
Macragge's Honour, command deck.
"Emergency protocol: increase power output by thirty percent and overload the engines!"
Communications officer Sades relayed the command with a stern expression, ordering the crew to comply immediately.
The goal was to escape this damned storm as quickly as possible.
Time within the Warp was both stretched and fleeting—any delay could send the ships off course by tens of light-years or even more.
It could even result in temporal distortions.
For the war effort, this was fatal. By the time they reached their destination, the war could have been over for decades—perhaps even longer.
Entire regions awaiting rescue might have been reduced to ashes.
Sades stared intently at the control panel of the Warp engines, the glow it emitted casting a reddish hue over everything.
Thankfully, the command was executed successfully, and he exhaled a breath of relief.
This flagship was the vessel of the great Lord Regent, the guiding light of the fleet—a blade that cut through the raging storm, leading the way.
The Lord Regent's fleet had to arrive at Baal at the right time, to save everything there.
"My brother waits in the blood and fire for rescue. No matter the cost, our fleet must reach Baal before it is destroyed!"
That was the Lord Regent's only command—firm, absolute, and beyond question.
"For the Emperor! Damn these wretched heretics!"
Sades' nostrils flared as he caught the whiff of a foul stench.
Even through the Gellar Field and the ship's hull, he could smell the nauseating, spirit-draining, acidic odor carried by the wind.
It was the stench of the storm itself—they were trapped within a raging sea of Warp tides.
He once borrowed a tome from the Primarch's library, which described how ancient Terran ships sailed the seas, using vast sails to harness the wind as propulsion.
They relied on the natural wind to navigate the oceans.
But when storms struck, the very wind that propelled them could turn into a killer—shattering ships and dragging them into the abyssal depths.
Sades had never seen an ocean. Born and trained on Holy Terra, he grew up in a world where resources had long since dried up—no oceans, no rivers, even the groundwater was exhausted.
All water was shipped in from ice fragments harvested off asteroids.
After the Lord Regent returned to Terra, Sades was honored to serve aboard the Macragge's Honour, in the service of the great Primarch—and had done so ever since.
Most of his life was spent on starships, never once visiting a planet with oceans.
"Perhaps those ancient Terrans, facing ocean storms, felt much like we do now," Sades mused.
He only hoped their ships could survive this storm and avoid capsizing in the tides of the Warp.
But fate was not so kind.
Every moment, ships were capsized by the waves, swallowed by the chaotic abyss, leaving no survivors.
They were the lucky ones, serving on the Macragge's Honour under the Primarch's protection—this was the safest place in the fleet.
But the corruption of Chaos knew no bounds.
Sades heard something and looked toward a certain area. Something alive was battering the ship through the storm—rejoicing, cackling.
Even with his helmet's seals closed, the nauseating, dizzying sounds still reached him.
They weren't transmitted physically—it was a form of psychic corruption.
Thankfully, a priest in the command deck began chanting sacred scriptures from the Imperial Creed, momentarily suppressing the discomfort.
"The Emperor protects…"
Sades closed his eyes and silently recited the litanies of the Emperor's Holy Words, which always brought him peace.
The Emperor, great and holy, was watching over them.
"Hahahahahaha!"
Suddenly, an ear-piercing, bone-chilling cackle rang out, so sharp it set Sades' teeth on edge.
His eyes snapped open, staring in the direction of the sound.
It was coming from within the command deck, not far from him.
A white-robed Ecclesiarch priest was laughing wildly.
"For the Emperor's sake, a loyal servant has heard the call of the Great Being…"
The priest suddenly tore off his robes, wailing in what seemed a mixture of joy and agony.
"The Lord of Pleasure has shown us mercy! We shall live on—forever!"
In an instant, the priest's skin turned pale, then blistered with pustules. His face became swollen and rotten, yet he seemed at peace.
"Laughter, comfort, love… Accept this gift…"
Zzzzap!
Without hesitation, a cloaked, cold-faced Primaris Space Marine stepped forward, slammed his hand onto the priest's face, and smashed him to the floor with a single punch.
Then, with searing psychic power, he incinerated the heretic's body into ash.
"Focus!"
The Primaris Marine gave a cold reminder, then silently returned to his post, vigilantly guarding the command deck.
The room settled down.
All crew members gathered their willpower, focusing on their duties. They knew only through unwavering concentration could they survive.
Just as Sades calmed himself, the peace was shattered by another scream.
This time, it came from the communications channel—a distress call from Destroyer 134 of the battle group.
But judging by the transmission's state, that ship was beyond saving…
Using his experience, Sades immediately identified the vessel as lost. Still, he followed protocol and reported the data.
He was just a communications officer—a living node for information relay, with no authority to make decisions.
"When the war is over… I want to see a real ocean," Sades thought suddenly.
Though he had never witnessed a vast blue expanse, nor the strange creatures dwelling within it, he was certain—he loved the idea of the ocean.
His thoughts were interrupted.
A more pungent stench assaulted him, a crushing psychic pressure gripping his heart like a vice.
Breathing became difficult.
It wasn't just Sades; other crew members showed varying degrees of distress.
Even the usually unflappable cloaked Primaris Marine showed a hint of tension, turning his gaze toward the depths of the ship.
A terrifying presence had boarded the vessel!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Corruption erupted again—more gunfire resounded within the command deck.
...
Near the Lord Regent's sanctum, in the Hall of Repentance.
This massive space, nearly a kilometer across, was already overwhelmed by rot. Corpses and the carcasses of Nurgle daemons littered the ground.
Even the floor was overrun with some kind of fungal infestation, sprouting oozing, bulbous growths.
A Great Unclean One had corrupted this area—more accurately, he was attempting to breach the Lord Regent's sanctum, to steal the rare relics within.
Among them was a stasis casket containing the key to the Lord Regent's Unyielding Crusade.
But the daemon had underestimated the Lord Regent's wrath. Before he could execute his diversionary plan, he was detected and intercepted.
The Lord Regent did not, as the daemon had hoped, rush to assist another critical ship. Instead, he appeared silently, leading his honor guard into the fray.
In the brief skirmish that followed—
The daemon's minions were slaughtered to the last, and even he himself was severely wounded.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The storm of shrapnel unleashed by the Lord Regent's Gauntlet of Dominion shredded the Nurgle daemon. The alchemical fragments left his eyes with irreparable injuries.
But this was exactly what the daemon had hoped for—the distance between them had closed to a dangerous proximity.
"You've made a mistake. Taste the beauty of the plague!"
The Great Unclean One seized the perfect moment—his bloated gut split open into a gaping maw, spewing forth a tide of seething pus, aimed at the towering figure clad in adamantine blue.
It was a carefully brewed venom, potent enough to kill a Primarch!
Accompanied by a horrific stench, the air thickened with yellow fumes. Within the pus, Nurgling spirits could be seen swimming, shrieking as they surged forward.
Yet, this attack was swiftly neutralized by the Chief Librarian's psychic might.
Woom—
A sudden black hole swallowed the deadly bile, banishing it to another dimension—along with the unfortunate Nurglings.
The Lord Regent's carefully prepared trap had sprung, leaving the Plaguebearer in a dire situation.
Before the daemon could lament his failed ambush, the Lord Regent's storm of attacks rained down in an unrelenting onslaught.
Wounds upon wounds were carved into the daemon's flesh.
"Lord Regent!" the Great Unclean One roared, raising his swollen, twisted arms like colossal hammers, swinging them down onto the figure before him.
Boom!
"Such attacks… are far too weak."
Here's the complete translation of the section:
Guilliman didn't dodge at all—he took the hit head-on, then swung his fist with a sudden force, smashing it squarely into the Nurgle Great Unclean One's chin.
The bloated mass of rotting flesh crashed backward with a thunderous thud.
"Heretic daemon… you shall pay the price for all of this…"
The Lord Regent's foot came down hard on the daemon's skull, his entire being radiating an uncontrollable fury.
His brother, Eden, was still awaiting support, yet these Chaos heretics dared to stand in his way. It was unforgivable!
With a fierce motion, Guilliman ignited the Emperor's Sword. The golden flame of the Emperor's power surged along its length, its sheer presence enough to terrify any denizen of the Warp.
"Primarch… spare me—"
At last, fear broke through the Great Unclean One's face; all joy drained away as he realized that this weapon could truly end his existence.
Rumors were one thing—facing the Lord Regent, facing the cursed blade itself, brought a true, visceral sense of death's grip.
He was the Plague's chosen, the 377th Favored of the Grandfather, a position of pride within the blessed hierarchy. He didn't want to lose it all.
But this heretic daemon's actions were beyond forgiveness.
Before the Great Unclean One could speak another word, the Emperor's Sword descended in a blinding arc, severing his head clean from his bloated body.
The Chaos daemon died in utter agony, with no chance of resurrection.
After the execution, Guilliman felt no joy in victory—his brow was furrowed with worry.
The Lord Regent seemed older, the lines in his face more pronounced.
"I wonder… what is the situation on Baal now…"
He worried for Baal, for his brother Eden's fate.
That brother had taken on the weight of the Imperium, holding the line against the terrifying Leviathan Hive Fleet in an apocalyptic war.
The situation was perilous, and the support he had promised still hadn't arrived.
Now, Chaos forces were doing everything they could to block the Indomitus Fleet's advance—clear proof that Baal's battle had reached a critical, desperate moment.
They were trying to delay him, to let Baal fall alone into ruin.
Guilliman knew Eden wasn't a warrior by nature. He wasn't built for this, struggling to hold the line against the monstrous Tyranids—his life might already be hanging by a thread.
That thought pained him.
As the eldest brother, it was his responsibility.
Over these ten thousand years, he had lost too many of his Primarch brothers—corrupted, slain, or consumed by the darkness.
He couldn't lose Eden too.
Thankfully, there was still a chance. The fleet was close to emerging from the Warp storm—they would soon arrive at Baal.
Guilliman turned to his aide.
"Felix, how long until we exit the Warp and reach Baal?"
Felix answered with utmost respect.
"We'll exit the storm in nine Terran hours, provided the Warp engines hold their calibration and there are no further attacks. If all goes well, we'll exit the Warp and arrive in the Baal system in approximately sixty-three Terran hours."
The aide replied with as much precision as possible, carefully avoiding any promises.
There were too many unknowns.
In fact, the Primarch had asked him this question not long ago—and Felix's answer back then had been nine days.
But now, more than two months had passed.
Felix had learned his lesson. He no longer dared to offer overly definite answers.
Accidents and attacks were always inevitable.
He even suspected that this fleet, under the Primarch's command, was particularly unlucky—the number of incidents they had faced was ten times that of any other fleet.
They were always a step behind.
"Perhaps it's the Primarch's presence," Felix mused, "drawing the gaze of more Chaos entities…"
Guilliman's name was legendary, the most revered leader in the Imperium, and the Chaos daemons' number-one enemy across the galaxy.
Of course they attracted more attacks.
Felix deliberately overlooked the engine fires, the sleeping machine spirits of the navigational cogitators, and all the other factors that had caused them to veer off course.
"Three days—assuming no further incidents, we'll reach Baal in three days."
He gave his final estimate, emphasizing the "assuming no further incidents" part, lest delays tarnish the Primarch's impression of him.
Guilliman nodded in satisfaction, the worry in his brow easing slightly.
"Brother… I'll be there soon…"
He looked up into the void and murmured.
According to the nav charts, that was the direction of Baal—where his brother fought on, holding the line.
The Lord Regent firmly believed he would make it in time, to save Eden, to sweep away every enemy of Mankind from Baal.
Boom!
Not far away, bursts of fire erupted, scorching the corpses of Chaos creatures and the rotting fungal growths.
Another Space Marine squad was using heavy flamers to cleanse the battlefield remains.
This was a necessary step—without it, the lingering Chaos taint would spark further outbreaks of corruption.
Once the thermal purge was complete, Inquisitors and Ecclesiarch priests would arrive to conduct further rites, eliminating every last trace of the threat.
Medics were also on the scene, treating the wounded.
Their methods were brutal—infected or fungal growths were simply hacked off, then drenched in vivid, multicolored solvents.
Thankfully, Space Marine physiology allowed for rapid regeneration—as long as the infection was removed, they would quickly regrow new flesh and recover fully.
Guilliman glanced at the scene, then strode away toward the sanctum, Felix at his side.
There was no need for him here any longer—the battle was over.
Time was too precious. He needed to return to his office and resume the backlog of work that had been piling up.
Those matters had to be addressed—if the paperwork stacked too high, it would bring even greater troubles and suffering.
In truth, the stack of paper documents on the Primarch's desk was growing at a rate of one meter every two standard Terran hours.
It was practically like the reproductive speed of the Tyranids—endless, unyielding!
The thought made Guilliman's brow crease once more.
He rubbed his forehead and found a few more deep wrinkles.
These damned documents were such a torment. He would rather fight Chaos Daemons any day than hunch over a desk dealing with soul-numbing paperwork!
"Once the war on Baal is over, maybe I should learn a thing or two from Eden… he processes administrative work so quickly…"
That thought crossed Guilliman's mind.
During their last communication, his brother had promised to develop a specialized administrative system for him—one that was secure and impervious to corruption.
Perhaps his long nightmare of paperwork would finally end.
Eden had always been so thoughtful—ready to help however he could. Even when Guilliman first awoke, Eden had crossed the stars to lend his aid on Macragge.
Thinking of this, the Lord Regent couldn't help but smile slightly, and his steps lightened.
Having such a brother… was truly a blessing.
But then, Guilliman suddenly stopped in his tracks—his entire body stiffening.
He sensed a familiar presence.
A rare flash of fury crossed his face, his aura flaring outward like a storm.
He spun and strode toward the area where wounded Space Marines were being treated.
An Apothecary was tending to an injured Marine, but the situation was deteriorating fast.
The wounded Marine kept coughing, as though something was blocking his throat—his raspy, choking sounds filled the air.
"This can't be… all medications are ineffective!" the Apothecary exclaimed in panic, injecting another cocktail of drugs, but to no avail.
A tall figure loomed over him—the Primarch.
"Everyone, evacuate this area immediately."
Guilliman's voice was calm but firm. He offered no explanation, but the danger was imminent—everyone needed to get clear.
Without hesitation, the others obeyed, fleeing as fast as they could.
Only the injured Marine remained behind—for he was the source of the danger.
Guilliman gazed at the Marine, a trace of sorrow flashing in his eyes.
The curse of corruption had taken hold too fiercely—there was no saving him now.
Sweat dripped from the Marine's brow in heavy beads. His skin blackened and reddened, the whites of his eyes turning deep yellow.
"My lord… what's happening to me…?" the Marine croaked, before gagging and vomiting up clots of black blood, within which strange fungal threads writhed.
But soon, he could no longer speak.
The Marine groaned in agony, convulsing on the floor, his body twisting in spasms.
He realized what fate awaited him, and that there was no turning back.
Though he was still groaning, his soul had already departed—only a shattered husk remained.
Moments later, even the soul could not linger. Death claimed him entirely.
But the corruption ran rampant, an astonishing spectacle of rapid decay unfolding before the Primarch's eyes.
The Marine's skin yellowed and withered, black and purple blotches spreading across his body, mold sprouting from the seams of his power armor.
His corpse became a lush bed of rot, ripe with the Grandfather's power.
Then something inside his chest began to shift, bulging outward into the shape of horns.
A hideous daemon head, wreathed in poison gas and tangled fungal filaments, burst through the Marine's chest.
It stared straight at the Lord Regent, grinning a twisted, strangely affectionate smile.
"Roboute… it's not easy to see you, you know…"
Guilliman gritted his teeth, his eyes blazing with stormfire.
"Mortarion!"
(End of Chapter)
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