Chapter 23
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"Traitor, your thoughts are as foolish as your mind. What has given you such confidence to dare appear before me?" Guilliman retorted. "You could have scurried back to your repulsive Warp before my arrival, yet you chose not to. I can't help but admire your courage, while also doubting if your mind has completely rotted away over the long years. After all, not much of you seems to be intact."
"You are very arrogant, Primarch," Guilliman's words darkened Gul'ro's face.
He had never imagined that a Primarch could utter such words.
"If you faced a pile of garbage, you would also involuntarily become arrogant. If your enemy's actions cannot change their pathetic outcome, then why not be arrogant?"
Roboute Guilliman's tone carried a tinge of mockery, his voice reverberating across the entire battlefield, eliciting cheers from the soldiers of the Empire.
"You will pay a price, Primarch," warned Gurlo, his sallow face turning a deeper shade of green. Clearly, he was angered by Guilliman's words.
Anyone would lose their temper when called trash, even if the insulter was a Primarch.
"I'd appreciate it if you could make me pay a price, but it's a shame you can't," Guilliman retorted, leaving Gurlo speechless.
He had never encountered such a brazen Primarch.
Guilliman was unconcerned by Gurlo's rage. The soul within him was not merely the Emperor's thirteenth son but also integrated with the knowledge and memory of another soul. This fusion created a new Guilliman, with a new personality.
In terms of mockery, not even the Chaos Gods could match him.
"I hope your power matches your tongue, Primarch," Gurlo replied, turning to his lieutenant. The bulky figure nodded in assent, indicating they were ready.
"You will face the power of the warp; tremble at it," Gurlo roared loudly.
Suddenly, the ground inexplicably began to shake.
The air was filled with the sound of shattering glass.
From the cracks emerged a stream of unholy light filled with malice. Everyone could sense a will, imbued with extreme hatred for all things in the physical world, trying to break free and enter our realm.
Crack, crack.
Reality fragmented like shattered glass, and celestial light spilled out like a breached dam.
Nearby Imperial psykers could feel their psychic power amplify. The tearing veil between the warp and reality was not without its benefits.
Of course, such benefits were fraught with danger.
Should a psyker fail to maintain their sanity, they would become horrific abominations under the warp's influence.
A grotesque and obese figure, covered in pustules and tiny tendrils and sporting a pair of massive horns, squeezed its way out from the warp.
The demon stood nearly ten meters tall, appearing exceedingly obese, and wielded a rusty greatsword.
Its bloated body seeped pus, with Plague Flies and Nurglings continually emerging from within.
Upon materializing, the demon let out a massive roar. Guilliman could see maggots wriggling within the creature's gaping maw.
Such a revolting demon.
Demons.
Eternal enemies of the Empire, eternal enemies of mankind. Beings formed from the unnatural energies of the warp, endowed with consciousness by the dark gods.
Demons cannot be killed. The bodies they inhabit in the physical universe are mere projections; their true forms reside in the warp.
Upon death, they merely return to the warp to be reborn.
Only a handful of weapons, or certain fearsome psykers, possess the power to obliterate demons completely. The Emperor's Sword, naturally, is among those held by Roboute Guilliman.
Upon his resurrection, he wielded this blade to vanquish a traitor who had ascended to demonhood, a being admired by the Chaos God, Khorne.
The composition of the denizens of the Warp is complex, largely molded by the Chaos Gods. Others stem from the unique worship or specific emotions of various races.
Take, for instance, the curse of humanity—the only existence in the Warp potentially capable of killing the Emperor — the Daemon: Drach'nyen. This entity inflicted severe damage upon the Emperor during the War in the Webway, hastening humanity's downfall in that conflict.
The Emperor's battle against Drach'nyen was among the most disadvantageous he has ever endured in his long life. Within a few exchanges, he was severely wounded. In the end, he used his loyal Custodes to seal away the terrible demon, allowing the Custodes carrying the sealed demon within him to withdraw from the Webway.
It was precisely due to Drach'nyen that, in the ensuing final battle, the Emperor was grievously wounded by Horus, who was backed by the Chaos Gods, and had to retreat to the Golden Throne.
The War in the Webway, the struggle with Drach'nyen, and the maintenance of the reality veil on Terra—all these efforts drained the Emperor, leaving him unable to resist the onslaught of the four Chaos Gods.
Fortunately, the loyal Sanguinius, before being brutally murdered by Horus, used all his strength to leave a dent in the latter's armor. Ultimately, the Emperor was able to exploit this weakness and kill Horus, with the assistance of the legendary Guardsman - Ollanius Pius.
In addition to Drach'nyen, which almost altered the outcome of Horus's rebellion, there were also other warp entities not aligned with the four gods. One such entity is Samus, the demon that gravely wounded the Imperial Fists during the Defense of the Solar System and almost killed the loyalist Garviel Loken.
Loken was once a subordinate of Horus, a member of the Mournival. On the planet Isstvan III, he chose to betray Horus rather than the Emperor, or the lofty dream of human transcendence. He was marked for purge by Horus, leading his surviving loyal soldiers to resist the continuous onslaught of another traitor primarch, Angron, for several months, single-handedly halting the progress of Horus's rebellion.
The loyal forces on the planet's surface were eventually annihilated by Horus's orbital bombardment, with only Loken surviving.
Samus, under Horus's orders, pursued this rebellious son to display his determination to supplant the Emperor, to declare his absolute authority with Loken's death, and to show the consequences of defying him.
To protect Loken, a dreamer named Mersadie Oliton, who joined the Expeditionary Fleet hoping to preserve human history, chose to sacrifice herself, driving away Samus.
Beyond these two, there are many Warp Demons like Malice that do not belong to the Chaos Gods. They form their own factions, engaging in conflict amongst themselves or serving one of the Gods, battling their enemies on the eternal battlefield.
When the Chaos Gods invade the real world, they ally with them to harvest human fear, emotions, and souls. The Plague Bearers summon demons from their own faction, Nurgle's Demons, also known as Plague Demons.
These demons serve the dark god, Nurgle, spreading plagues in the real world.
"A Primarch??" The newly arrived Nurgle demon immediately noticed Roboute Guilliman, holding the Emperor's Sword.
"A disgusting demon." Guilliman, still trying to break the last line of defense of the traitors, looked at the demon emerging from the Warp, his words equally cold.
"Perhaps the unhappy Mortarion needs a family member." The Plague Demon looked at Guilliman with a smile, "I can take you back, Mortarion will be happy."
"That foolish traitor needs a pyre more, and so do you, demon. You still have a chance to retreat, or I will burn you alive." Guilliman bluntly replied, raising his Emperor's Sword high, slaying the last Plague Marine before him and stepping towards the demon.