Chapter Twenty: The Lunar Crusade (Part III)

Location: The Bucephalus, Approaching Luna

Date: 813.M30 (Thirteen hours since the battle for Luna began)

The Emperor of Mankind stood at the edge of his command deck onboard the Bucephalus and watched the newly christened Lunar Crusade unfold. The titanic and ancient mind that was Revelation pulled information and senses from countless sources, ranging from his fine-tuned superhuman ones, to more esotetric links with the Cognatu Ferrum and Astronomicon. He absorbed and understood this data at speeds only the mightiest Golden Age A.I.s could have possibly rivaled. The Emperor directed fleet movements and shared strategy with his sons, doing everything he could to minimize damage to the Cradle of Mankind.

While he engaged in this material war the Emperor also fought an immaterial one. The hideous weight of the Primordial Annihilator pressed on realspace. Like storm smashing into a break-wall, the Dark Gods desperately tried to smash through the Emperor's light and swallow Sol. Each swarm of Daemons and tainted ships that poured from the cracks in reality was fraction of the horde that was broken and banished when faced with the Emperor's might.

The Emperor did not know exactly where the ramshackle fleets of Daemon Ships and Damned pirates was coming from. This was not a loosely organized assault of some chaotic empire. Like the Black Crusades of the God-Emperor's time. Instead it was more like the Warp violently ejecting material refuse through the rips in space/time. Millions if not billions of vessels had been lost to the Warp in the millions of years since the War in Heaven. Space Hulks and more bizarre phenomena were often the result of this tragic state of Warp-Travel. The scrap-fleets and Daemon ships appeared to be another collection of tainted material matter that rode the tides of unreality. Jetsam and Flotsam on the Sea of Souls. Broken and possessed vessels crewed by lunatics, Daemons and worse.

So the Imperium dueled the cursed fleet all across the Void. Each Primarch leading a different front of the battle. Octaviar Perturabo the IV Primarch had turned the void-space around one of the larger rifts into a three dimensional kill box. Anything that spat forth from the yawning void located near Venus was reduced to its base elements by a storm of fire power. Phillip Lot rallied the newest members of the Imperium with his sheer charisma. Turning the wavering hearts of the Saturnyne Ordo to iron-strong believers of the Imperial Truth.

With his sons crushing the forces of Chaos the Emperor ordered the Bucephalus to head towards Sol. The Emperor would broadcast his presence across Terra. Letting his subjects know he had not abandoned them. Then as planned he would arrive on Luna seal the prime Warp-Rift. The details had shifted here and their but it so far things were going just as planned. The lunar taint would be purged, the Legions would be reborn, and mankind would be girded against the Warp. The knowledge gifted to him by his fouler counterpart alongside his own insight gave the Emperor an unmatched understanding of fate.

Unmatched did not mean perfect however, and the Chaos gods are clever and cruel beings. So when the Bucephalus left Terran orbit after reassuring the masses and headed for Luna, it encountered something truly terrible. The Emperor of Mankind would not fight beside his sons on Luna or work to shut the rift. Instead, he would fight for his life against an unborn nightmare.

Just as the Imperial fleet clustered around Luna became visible as pinpricks of light, existence shook once again. Unlike the system spanning wave of madness the Creed of Four Phases had unleashed this convulsion of the veil was limited to lunar orbit. A great warp-leviathan was stirring directly in the flight path of the Bucephalus, a titan of the deepest reaches of the immaterium. Something that should not and could not exist had been summoned. The blood and misery of Zamora the Squat's death lured this horror out. The ritual the creed used had cast Zamora's soul deep into the warp. Like a meteor of torment it, struck the sea of souls and caused a tidal wave of insanity that surged through Sol.

Zamora had been chosen for this role not simply because he defied fate and stayed loyal to the Anathema however, he was chosen because his soul and existence called out to one of the ancient and unborn monarchs of madness. Roused from its slumber, this dark god devoured Zamora utterly and traced the Squat's fall up to the materium, where the blinding cursed light of the Anathema shone. Incensed and wrathful, the god saw the Sol system and coveted it. Slaves to be claimed, worlds to be exploited, the fires of industry would burn!

With an otherwordly wail, the materium ruptured and the warp began to overlap with realspace. The warp levithan was pulling itself into reality. Every soul-bearing being in Sol felt insticutal pain as the god attempted to force itself into real world. The psionic and daemonic energy the Creed of Four phases were utilizing through the Rift into the future was consumed at a startling rate. Thousands of cloned brains that existed only to suffer and feed the warp were shredded under the strain. Dozens upon dozens of latent psykers across Sol suddenly felt the calling of the Warp and were driven insane by the leviathan's presence.

Despite all the schemes of the Creed and its sibling gods, this lesser Chaos God could not fully materialize. Such an event would have turned Sol and a decent chunk of Segmentum Solar into a new Eye of Terror. Instead, a horrid aspect of the God climbed into the materium. Its body was composed of dozens of Space-Hulks, all reforged into a blasphemous bull-headed image, and powered by the madness and warfare in Sol. An Avatar of Chaos unborn ripped into the void. It sought to break the Anathema and devour mankind in its eternal greed.

The Emperor watched this unfold from his flagship, unable to stop it. Only ensuring it did not further rip open the material. It would pass into realspace, but he would not let it permanently scar the Solar System. Rising from the command throne the Emperor sent an urgent message to all the Primarchs. They were on their own for now. Continue the battle plan and follow Malcador's instructions until the Daemon King was banished. On both planes of existence the Emperor stared into the furnace-fire eyes of the Monster and spoke one of its accursed names. "Hashut…. God of Greed, Fire, Industry and Tyranny."

The God whose number was Four had yet to achieve dread apotheosis and if the Emperor succeeded it never would. Hashut was the name given to one of the Great Daemon Kings of the Warp. Beings who were not Chaos Gods but could be. The God whose number was Four would be the God of industry, machinery and creation. The Squats feared it as Hashut. The Kai-Smiths Sa'a'ram and the Forge of Souls called it patron. Humanity encountered it during the Iron War as Valchocht. The Dark Mechanicus and similar groups through the paths of fate would birth this Daemon King into a new chaos god.

Until that traumatic recreation it should have been confined to the Deep Warp, sealed there along with the other horrors of the War in Heaven, only able to influence the universe in subtle ways until it's rebirth. Yet, in an act of desperate spite, the Primordial Annihilator had unleashed this lesser aspect of itself, defying the laws of time and space to destroy the Anathema.

Using his psychic Aura to brace the Bucephalus and its escort fleets crew, the Emperor prepared for battle. Pouring energy into the Cogantu Ferrum, he ordered the Psionic Intelligence to use everything available to banish the Daemon King. It might be powerful, but its grasp on realspace was tenuous. With a strong enough push it would be cast into the pit. If it survived long enough to feed and cement its place in the materium, the end of actuality would be vastly accelerated. The End of all things that the Emperor sought to avoid would occur when the barriers between material and immaterial came crashing down. An unborn god incarnating even partially would hasten the rise of madness.

The Bucephalus opened fire on Hashut. Gouts of plasma and more exotic substances smashed into the Hulk-Daemon. Lances of energy focused through the Emperor's Psi-crystals and struck the thing in both planes of existence. Titan-sized shells of silver and adamantium were fired at relativistic speeds. Flights of Custodes and Astartes piloted attack craft were launched. Hashut let loose a piercing roar that defied physics and echoed through the void in response. Its cavernous maw opened up and let loose a blast of superheated and tainted metal. Void-ships worth of Daemon possessed forge-slag flew towards the Bucephalus. The Cognatu Ferrum strained the mighty vessels thrusters and spun the Flagship out of the stream of fire.

The Bucephalus fired broadside after broadside at the Daemon King. It retaliated with a storm of missiles cannibalized from the Space-Hulks component vessels. The jagged black-metal instruments of death smashed into the Bucephalus's shielding. The torpedoes were too slow to trigger the void shield but the Cognatu Ferrum's control of the vessels Ion-Barriers and Kine Shields protected the hull.

Soon the Fighter wings of the Imperial Flagship found themselves facing a new danger. Flocks of Heldrakes poured from cracks in Hashut's form. The possessed attack craft were summoned/built within the Daemon King and now joined the battle. The Bucephalus and Hashut dueled each other above Luna. Like sea monsters of ancient myth they clashed in the Void, the very fate of existence hanging in the balance. Imperial firepower dueled the techno-sorcery that constantly reforged the Space-hulk body. The Cognatu Ferrum desperately tried to do more damage than the Daemon-King could repair. Its artificial soul struggling under mental burden of coordinating the Imperiums Flag Fleet. The Emperor had given it two orders. Hurt Hashut and buy the Master of Mankind time. Even as Hashut's claws racked the ships side and made the Cognatu scream in pain the Psionic Intelligence fought on.

As his servants sought to best the Daemon King on the Material plane the Emperor dueled it in the Warp. Golden Light and dark fire clashed as Anathema and Chaos God-to-be battled. The Emperor faced the near undivided attention and power of Hashut. The patron of the Forge of Souls wielded horrible powers. Soul Grinders from every pantheon flocked to its side. Fighting and dying to fulfill their oath. For Hashut was as much the Forge of Souls as its patron. Just as the Four and their Realms were the same monolithic and horrid entity.

The Emperor did not face this legion of Neverborn alone. The souls of all who fell in the God Emperor's name fought alongside him. Firestorms of Gold and Black dueled each other. Embers that had once been Guardsmen held the line against Daemon Engines and Render Daemons. Angels of Death clad in holy light dueled K'daai Fireborn. All while the Master of Mankind faced Hashut.

With every passing moment, the Daemon King was pushed further on the defensive. The righteous fury of humanity channeled through its Emperor was more than a match for the God of Tyranny. Atham the Revelator had faced down all Four of the Primordial Annihilator's reborn aspects multiple times. On Moloch, during the lighting of the Astronomicon, and at the very moment of his creation when the Shamans had become one and drunk deep from the Well of Eternity. An unborn ghost of a possible god would not best him. It knew this, and the other powers of the warp did as well. Hashut would not succeed in slaying the Anathema, but he could delay him.

Forcing the Emperor to deal with the God whose number was Four. Instead of standing beside Horus when he entered the Inner Sanctum. The XVI Primarch and Legion would face the Darkness alone.

Location: The Heart of the Inner Sanctum, Luna

Date: 813.M30 (Thirteen hours since the battle for Luna beguin)

Gouts of Plasma fire cut the Adamantium Door leading to the Inner Sanctum. Its hinges turning to slag and its bulk toppled over. The metal wailed a sad song as it crashed into the ground. At that exact moment Hashut ruptured into existence in the void above Luna. That traumatic event echoed in minds across Sol. For the XVI Legion, it was barely registered as a distinct element to the mind-breaking wave of malice that smashed into them. The gate had been warded, sealing the worst of the corruption into this "sacred" chamber. The stomach turning foulness that had seeped through it was nothing compared to this new discharge. Multiple battle-brothers had to fight down the urge to vomit. Nearly all of them flinched at the sensations bombarding them.

The Warp's insanity overlapped with realspace here in an unbearable way. By some horrid means, the Creed of Four Phases had turned the temple into a hellmouth. The heart of Luna was no longer a thing of steel, stone and dust. It had become a miniature Daemon World. A impossibly corrupt thing, more akin to the psychotic Crone worlds within the Eye then anything native to Luna.

Even to the Astartes enhanced senses, the inner sanctum looked like a void of hungry darkness. A yawning abyss that oozed evil and stared into their very souls. They were lucky, being blind to the Immaterium meant that the true horror while lay within escaped them. All but one of the strike forces librarians had the sense too mute their witch-sight and supernatural senses when the door came down. The fool who believed himself mighty enough to resist whatever came next died badly. His neurons overloaded from the impossible stimuli. Like a star flung into a supermassive black hole the Librarian's soul was devoured by the darkness.

Yet the mental burden weighed the heaviest on the Primarch. Horus did not look away from the abyss. He stared into it and let out a silent scream. For the many gifts his body and soul possessed let him see the truth. The inner temple itself was an eight sided chamber large enough to hold thousands of worshippers. Its walls and floor were slick with black blood. Bolts of energy flashed around the chamber, carrying psionic discharge that emitted blood-curdling screams with each eruption. The energy bursts lit the room for microseconds, casting shadows in Daemonic form and illuminating its occupants.

Twenty cultists, all super-charged by dark-energy sat prostrated around the central altar. Horus could see their souls flicker and twitch. Walking the tightrope between Daemonhood and spawndom. These were not the mere cultists they had butchered by the thousands. The twenty were the masters of this rebellion. Each a sorcerer and champion of the gods. Now, they sought the reward for their betrayal: to ascend and join the pantheon of Daemon Princes, empowering their masters to do this by drawing in warp-energy from the centerpiece of the chamber.

This was the source of the madness that tortured Horus and his sons. A crack in reality that stretched from the chamber's roof to the Primarch's gestation chamber a level below it. Nearly a meter wide it was a direct conduit to the Warp's foulest reaches. Yet the aura of insanity, the repulsion, the sheer wrongness it produced was not the source of Horus's pain. What made his soul spasm in revulsion was what happened when he stared into the rift. That occured because when Horus looked into hell, it looked back. The attention of the Dark Gods pressed on the rift. The eyes of the 1/4/8/16//64/108 Gods of Chaos were all focused on him. The Primordial Annihilator peered into the materium, and into Horus.

Horus Lupercali had seen the majesty and terror of his father many times. He had stared into the Astronomicon, even touched the galaxy of divine fire that composed the Emperor. Those blinding, borderline traumatic experiences were nothing in comparison to what he now encountered. Sheer utter madness crashed into Horus. In the Primarch's mind, a trillion terrible images scraped at his sanity. The suffering and torment of more mortals than he could ever count, feelings of betrayal and gut wrenching misery, shock and disbelief that only a victim of fratricide could understand, screaming billions fed to the primordial annihilator by its wretched servant. Gritting his teeth and gripping the Spear like a lifeline. Horus attempted to return the monsters stare.

That was a mistake for in that instant the horrific truth of the visions violated the Primarchs brain. A single horrible thought.

"You did this."

"NOOOOOOOO!" Was all Horus could manage as the full terrible consequences of his twisted equivalents actions played out. How Horus, the Warmaster of Chaos set the Galaxy aflame. Cancerous whispers oozed from the rift and flitted around Horus, spreading more of their despair and corruption.

"You are damned to this. The destiny of the XVI is written into the tides of fate itself. You shall destroy all your father strived for. Become our greatest servant and reveal the primordial truth to all!"

The Primarch frantically gripped the Spear-tip like it was a rock to cling to as he was buffeted by the waves of pure, cosmic horror, his superhuman grip cracking its crystalline coating as fast as it could regenerate. What could best be called a seizure tore at Horus' mind and body. More information and emotion than even his mind could handle slammed into his consciousness. The suffering of every single innocent butchered from Istavaan to Cadia dueled for his attention. A drumbeat of warp-energy thrummed through him. Its message simple and terrible:

"Submit to your fate and the agony stops. Surrender to the Truth and be free!"

Horus Lupercali screamed and screamed until his throat was bloody and raw. Twitching and frothing at the mouth, he fought with his entire soul against the evil. The psychic fire of his gift anchoring him ever so slightly. His sons clustered around him, shock and panic painted across their faces. Horus was aware of them, of every thought and feeling. Responding to his emotions the Chaos Gods whispered another threat.

"I wonder, how long your sons will last under the weight of your sins? Which one do you think will die first? Do you think he will die proud? Or will he feel nothing but shame and regret for the path you would lead him? Embrace us! Submit and be what you were made to be! The ultimate conqueror! A master of the Stars. The Everchosen champion who starts the next chapter in the Eternal War!"

Visions of Horus Lupercali clad in dread power. Marching at the head of Black Legions. Casting down the Emperor and ruling as the Dark Emperor of Mankind. Elected by the Primordial Truth to rule in their name for all eternity. Horus resisted the temptation. He fought it better than any being could be expected too. He knew though, at the back of his mind, he knew a terrible truth. Eventually, he could crack. It might take days or even years but eventually he would fall.

Desperately he reached out to his father. Hoping against hope the Master of Mankind would be his salvation. It was only then when the Chaos Gods let the Emperor's message through. A simple warning meant to help sons. He could not aid them due to the Dark Gods interference. It could not have come at a worse time. To the Primarch's tortured and maddened, mind it was the ultimate abandonment. Horus was crushed, his fate sealed.

Using the last ounce of sanity and willpower he possessed Horus made his decision. He would not allow himself to become a tool of evil. His tenure of duty would be short but it would end in the only acceptable way. For only in Death Does Duty End.

With a single shaking hand, Horus unlocked his breastplate and let the massive slab of Adamantium and machinery fall to the chamber floor. Gripping the Speartip by its jagged edge he let out a roar of defiance before ramming the blade through his primary heart. The Longinus had struck down a living god once before. It could do it once again.

Light erupted from the wound as the blade was pushed deeper and deeper into the Primarch's chest. In a detonation of sacred energy it erupted. A wave of Anathema-Flame roiled through the Chamber. Disrupting the ritual and breaking the Darkness' hold power over Abaddon and his Battle Brothers.

The light faded and the Astartes looked upon their Gene-Father. Slumped to his knees and with a rictus of agony distorting his face. Horus Lupercali had fallen, slain by his own hand. The Speartip of Longinus erupted from his chest like a beacon of light. The Lupercal had been damned by an Unholy blade. The Lupercali was instead saved by a Holy one.

Shock and grief filled his sons. They knew what their father had done. He had sacrificed himself to save them all. Raising up his Power-Sword and crying tears of righteous fury, Abaddon charged the twenty cultists. His anger was a pure thing, not the mindless bloodlust of Khorne. His grief was untainted by Nurgles touch. His desire for vengeance was not perverted by Slaanesh. Pure hope for redemption and salvation clean of Tzeentch's machinations. His emotions were purified by control and purpose. Untouched by Chaos, Abaddon the Redeemer struck down the evil.

Bound into the ritual and focused on controlling the immaterial energy that was becoming increasingly wild, the twenty cultists were weak things. Easily hacked apart by the XVI Legion. Like a tumor exposed to searing flames, the cult leaders boiled away to a black sludge. Panting slightly, Abaddon looked around the Chamber. He did not know how to shut this gate but he knew he would guard it until the Emperor could arrive. Horus would not die in vain, he would not allow it.

Wracked with grief and combat-haze, the Astartes started to relax and absorb the shock of what occured. This was a mistake. It provided an opening for the Twenty First Cultist. A lance of warp-energy that sorcerers called a Doombolt lanced out from the Rift. It struck Captain Hastur in the chest. Searing his organs to ash and rapidly mutating his body. Where the noble Astartes once stood was now a foul Chaos-Spawn.

Before the new threat could be addressed by the surviving Astartes, the rift shimmered. Out of it walked the leader of the Creed of Four Phases. Soaked in corruption and empowered by the Gods themselves, Sagitari-17 had arrived to crush the heretics.

Snarling at the Astartes the Lunar Fiend spoke in an unearthly voice. "So the False-Emperor's bastards come. You fools defied the gods and rejected ascendance when we offered it. I wove the secrets of divinity into your flesh and you repay me with bolt and blade. No matter. My ascension is at hand. Luna shall join the constellation of Chaos, just as I shall join the pantheon of Princes!"

Igniting his Power Sword and leveling his Bolter Abaddon growled in response: "You will die painfully and I swear that your False Gods will follow soon enough."

Smiling cruelly, Sagitari-17 raised his hands. Clasped between them was a blood-stained goblet. Lifting the blasphemous artifact to his lips he drank its content. The blood of a Daemon King filled him. The essence of Be'lakor acting a the final component in his ritual. After drinking his fill, Sagitari-17 cast aside the empty vessel and laughed. "The gods granted me twin tools too ensure your demise" he laughed. "Witness the power of Chaos!"

A storm of dark, hateful energy poured from the rift. An inky tidal wave of malice that flooded into Sagitari-17. A legion of demonic voices laughed as Sagitari-17 roared in pain. His flesh twisted and bent as the Dark Master entered him. Great obsidian horns and ragged wings erupted from his head and back, oily scales rippled across his skin. Be'lakor the first Daemon Prince possessed Sagitari-17 and walked the materium once again.