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Chapter 275: The Emperor's Wariness
🕑 Added 2025-09-05 13:57:53 +0000 UTCChapter 275: The Emperor's Wariness
The chaos on Terra was showing signs of escalating. The Adeptus Custodes themselves had begun to lead purges into the underhives, yet they found that no matter how many of the active cultists they killed, the supply seemed endless. In some hives, sacrificial rituals had even succeeded in summoning daemons to the surface of Terra. Other xenos, and even Genestealer Cults, were using the chaos to expand their own power.
Several squads of Grey Knights were urgently dispatched from Titan to Terra to deal with the growing Chaos threat. With corruption on this scale, the possibility of a Greater Daemon manifesting was very real. Fortunately, this did not come to pass. The Four Gods, still somewhat traumatized by their encounter with Lucan, chose not to invest too much of their power on Terra. Instead, they opted for these smaller-scale, subversive acts of sabotage to slow down Guilliman's consolidation of Imperial power.
This strategy was, in some ways, even more vexing than a direct, large-scale invasion. The consequences of the traitors within the Administratum were far more severe than imagined. The Imperial bureaucracy had ground to a halt, and a cascade of systemic failures was triggered by the corrupted data. No one had expected Tzeentch's infiltration of the Administratum to have reached such a depth. Many of the officials didn't even know they were aiding Chaos. Under Tzeentch's years of silent, patient guidance, they had unknowingly become accomplices. Even when they were arrested by the Inquisition, they still believed they were truly helping the Imperium.
Trying to find the erroneous data within the sea of documents and archives was an almost impossible task. And there was no way to prove who could be trusted and who could not. The flaws of a vast, bloated bureaucracy were on full display.
While Guilliman went to see the Emperor, all the Inquisition and the Adeptus Arbites could do was arrest and kill. Better to kill the innocent than let a single guilty party escape. Any noble or official with even the slightest connection to the traitors was arrested. Those who resisted were ruthlessly suppressed. Most of those who fell into the hands of the Inquisition and the Arbites would never see the light of day again.
The transport landed at the Lion's Gate Spaceport. The group had to pass through the Eternity Gate and then walk the mile-long Eternity Wall Avenue to reach the Inner Palace. On both sides of the avenue were statues of famous heroes from the Imperium's history. At the plaza at the end of the path stood statues of the Primarchs. Once, all the Primarchs had been represented here, but now, the statues of the traitors had been removed. The related history had also been erased; most of the populace did not even know of the Horus Heresy or the existence of the traitor Primarchs.
Guilliman looked at Lucan, who was staring at the sculptures.
"Lord Lucan, you have also earned the right to have a statue on this path."
"Forget it," Lucan said. "A statue is meaningless. I am more concerned with practical matters. Remember the authority you promised me."
"After I have seen the Emperor, you will get what you want."
The chaos on Terra had forced the full deployment of the Custodes. Ten thousand of them now guarded every corner of the Palace. When the group arrived before the Throne Room, the 300 most elite of the Custodes were already lined up on both sides.
Looking at the closed doors of the Palace, Guilliman turned to Trajann.
"Trajann, open the gate. Ferrus and I need to see our father."
Trajann nodded, and at his signal, the doors to the Throne Room opened. But just as Guilliman and Ferrus were about to lead Lucan inside, a Custodian Herald spoke.
"Lord Guilliman, Lord Ferrus," the Custodian's voice was impassive. "The great Emperor has conveyed an oracle to me. He wishes to see Lord Lucan alone. Lord Lucan, please wait here patiently."
The Custodian's words stopped all three of them in their tracks.
Well, well, Lucan thought to himself, so he's wary of me. Does he want to have a private little chat with his sons?
Despite his inner sarcasm, Lucan cautiously eyed the surrounding Custodes. His meeting with the Emperor in the warp hadn't felt like this. The prospect of meeting his true physical form made him a little nervous. He checked his remaining Psy-crystals, confirming he had enough to summon the DOOM Slayer. He even began to contact the Spear of Adun and his fleet, which had not accompanied him, just in case. He was slightly worried the Emperor might try to stick him on the Golden Throne as a replacement.
When Lucan was weak, the Emperor probably wouldn't have had such thoughts. But as Lucan's Warp Projection grew stronger, and the amount of warp energy he could devour and purify increased, things might have changed. Although Lucan felt his current value made it unlikely the Emperor would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, one could never be too careful. He had to prepare for the worst. The Emperor, on his path to godhood, was losing more and more of his humanity.
Guilliman and Ferrus walked into the Throne Room. The heavy doors closed behind them.
Arriving before the Golden Throne, Guilliman and Ferrus looked up at the figure seated upon it. Countless cables and tubes were inserted into his completely withered and decayed body. The Golden Throne continuously drew upon the Emperor's psychic and life energies.
Seeing the Emperor again after ten thousand years, both Guilliman and Ferrus had a fleeting moment of doubt. Was this truly the same Emperor they had once known? A power that was not human radiated from the desiccated corpse.
A flash of light pierced their very souls, causing both of them immense pain.
"Father..."
Guilliman struggled to open his eyes and look at the corpse on the Golden Throne. Ferrus, in his Purifier body, had an even more acute perception of the Emperor than Guilliman. An uncontrollable fear rose in both their hearts. The Emperor's current state reminded them of the Four Gods of the warp.
A wave of psychic energy washed over them from the Emperor's corpse. As it influenced their consciousness, the Emperor's form before them changed. In their eyes, the Emperor now appeared as a gestalt entity of countless consciousnesses, a convergence of both positive and negative emotions.
It was only at this moment that Guilliman truly began to believe that the Emperor was on the path to godhood. He tried to find the familiar Emperor among the countless wills. And then, the image of the Emperor he had once known manifested within the maelstrom of consciousness. He no longer looked like a corpse, but as he had before he was interred on the Golden Throne. They had Lucan to thank for this; his previous actions of venting the psychic pressure and siphoning off the faith had allowed the Emperor to retain more of his humanity.
Seeing the Emperor again, both of them were overcome with emotion. Guilliman began to ask the Emperor what he should do next, and who, exactly, Lucan was.
The answer he received was not what he expected. The Emperor showed Guilliman and Ferrus Lucan's Warp Projection... a Xel'naga. It was a form that was difficult to associate with humanity. The Emperor confirmed that Lucan was the key to saving humanity and the Imperium. But when Guilliman learned from the Emperor's own lips that Lucan was not from this universe, he finally understood why so many things about him were inexplicable.
"There are truly other worlds besides our own..."
"Guilliman," Ferrus said, "it seems this universe is far larger than we imagined. I, too, have sensed voices from other worlds before. Lucan's existence has confirmed this suspicion for me."
Guilliman and Ferrus exchanged a look. And then, what the Emperor said next made Guilliman's expression turn grim.
As Lucan had suspected, the Emperor had never trusted him one hundred percent. To this world, Lucan was, in the end, an outsider. Everything Lucan had shown so far was indeed not harmful to humanity or the Imperium. But precisely because he was so beyond reason and so powerful, the Emperor felt he could not be controlled.
An individual with no fate or future in this world has no ties to it. And the human heart is the most difficult thing to fathom. Lucan's rate of growth had made even the Emperor feel uneasy. In his eyes, no matter how much Lucan claimed to be fighting for humanity, it was, in the end, just his word.
The Emperor told Guilliman to grant Lucan more power within the Imperium to accelerate his development. But he also needed to be wary of Lucan and his forces. The Imperium needed to maintain a certain level of supervision over him. Cawl would actively help Lucan with his technological breakthroughs, but at the same time, he would learn and master his technology, so that those key technologies could be brought under true Imperial control.
"I understand... Father..."
The doors to the Throne Room opened once more. No one knew what the Emperor had said to the Primarchs. But Lucan's keen perception sensed a change in the way Guilliman was looking at him.
"Lord Lucan," Guilliman said, his voice unreadable. "My father will see you now."
