Chapter 262: Curze: "I See."

The war on Belia IV raged on. The bitter struggle between the sons of the Emperor—the eternal fratricide—was far from over.

Outside the Maelstrom, aboard Macragge's Glory, the flagship of the Imperial Regent, Roboute Guilliman stood in his command chamber, watching the battle reports stream in.

He stared at the data for a long time, silent. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.

He dismissed his guards and entered a private chamber—though not one of strategic importance or classified secrecy.

It was a vast dining hall, grand enough to seat twenty-one giants. Twenty-one thrones encircled a long obsidian table—one for each of the Emperor's sons.

To the outside world, Guilliman was the most rational and composed of the Primarchs. But in truth, he was perhaps the most sentimental. While others had surrendered brotherhood to ambition or madness, he had quietly constructed this hall in secret, holding onto the distant hope that one day, they might all sit together once more.

He walked slowly past each throne, his fingertips brushing the armrests as he counted silently in his mind.

One. Two. Three. Eight. Nine. Thirteen...

Each number brought with it a tide of memories, both fond and sorrowful.

At the sixteenth throne, he stopped.

His gaze lingered.

"Horus... If you could not accept the future of the Great Crusade—one in which the Astartes were no longer the empire's sword—and if you still harbored resentment toward our Father, then you should have spoken, fought, raged. But you... you were too cowardly. Always seeking others to bear your burdens, always searching for an external savior when confronted with what you could not face. That was your flaw."

"Whether the Warmaster's rebellion had succeeded or failed, it would have left an indelible scar upon the Imperium. A tragedy worthy of mourning, a legend worthy of song. But the gods twisted it—turned it into mockery. Puppets on strings dancing to an alien tune."

He sighed.

"How tragic."

His voice echoed through the empty hall, fading slowly into silence.

On the surface of Belia IV, near the heart of the temple-city...

Curze's claws sank into Horus' abdomen. The wound, though brutal, was not fatal—not to one of their kind. Not to a Primarch.

But the Night Haunter wasn't trying to kill. Not yet.

The serrated talons churned within Horus' flesh, tearing muscle and sinew with cruel precision. Pain—sharp and intimate—radiated from every twist of the blade.

Curze was deliberate. This was no duel. It was punishment.

"Why are you here, Horus?" came the low rasp from the shadows. "Speak the truth, brother... it may lessen your suffering."

But Horus said nothing.

His hands clamped around Curze's wrists, trying to still the torment. Around him, an unseen pressure built—an unnatural storm beginning to stir.

Some who had witnessed Horus in the Warp said he took the form of a vortex. Others claimed he was a howling sandstorm, large enough to blanket the entire Sea of Souls.

What he had once been—the true soul of Horus—was hollowed out on the eve of the Heresy. The gods had drained him dry... and then stuffed the empty vessel with power anew.

But now, to oppose Dukel, they had no choice but to restore more of what had been taken.

They needed that Horus again. The Warmaster of old.

Even if he was no longer whole.

A storm swelled around his form, the Warp leaking from his every breath.

"One day, you'll understand, Curze," Horus said at last, his voice calm once more. "You'll see this was mercy."

And then it erupted.

An eruption of unrestrained Warp energy tore through the battlefield. The storm bloomed like a detonated star—chaotic, blistering, unstoppable.

Even Curze, with all his dark divinity, was hurled back like driftwood before a tidal wave.

The entire battlefield was obliterated in seconds. Mortals kilometers away were flattened to the earth. Imperial bastions were torn from their foundations. Even the clouds themselves were pulled into a screaming vortex above.

When it was over, when the warp-light dimmed and the hurricane ceased, the soldiers staggered to their feet.

And the demigods were gone.

Vanished. As if they had never been there at all.

Elsewhere...

Horus fled, one hand pressed against the gaping wound in his abdomen. He moved with purpose—away from the battle, away from Curze.

He had no intention of hunting Koz down. Though he could defeat him, it would take time.

Time he no longer had.

Even restrained, the power he had unleashed would surely draw Dukel's attention.

And Dukel was coming.

Horus needed to reach his objective before then. If not, everything he had sacrificed—everything he had become—would be for nothing.

In the dark ruins of the inner city...

High Speaker Lorgar stumbled through the shadows, his baroque armor torn and smoldering. He cast psychic blasts behind him blindly, desperately, hoping to ward off what followed.

A murder of crows.

Silent, relentless, spectral.

They pursued him like a curse, never slowing.

In his panic, Lorgar tripped—his boot catching on something hard.

He fell. And as he looked up, a towering figure emerged from the darkness.

Cloaked in cobalt blue, wreathed in the cold aura of command.

"Guilliman?" Lorgar gasped, equal parts fury and disbelief.

"It is I," Guilliman replied evenly.

He knelt, scooped up a handful of ash from the broken stones, and let it spill from his fingers.

"This is for you, brother."

"What are you saying?!" Lorgar shouted.

"This is your perfect city," Guilliman said, voice dripping with contempt. "Have you forgotten? You dreamed of a utopia, a paradise built on your faith. And I destroyed it."

He opened his hands, letting the dust fall like time itself.

"Look, brother. Your Perfect City... is dust in the wind."

Lorgar's face twisted in fury, teeth clenched. Yet Guilliman, ever composed, seemed oblivious to his brother's rage.

"The Perfect City," Guilliman continued coldly, "reduced to ash—just like your worth."

"Admit it, Lorgar. You are a pitiful soul. No one truly loved you. Your adoptive father despised you. The Emperor, even more so. You were never valued. Compared to our brothers, you were a shadow. Even Perturabo chose to remake himself. You? You simply surrendered."

Lorgar stared into Guilliman's face, every word stabbing deeper than a blade. In that moment, the Ultramarine's visage seemed utterly detestable.

But Guilliman pressed on, unrelenting.

"When you knelt before the Emperor, declaring Him a god, claiming to be His most devout follower—I began to loathe you. All your life, you've strived to become a marionette for others. You lost yourself chasing hollow ideals, never once building a soul of your own."

"Think of the Perfect City. Your congregation who worshipped you—who carved idols and chanted the Emperor's name in endless devotion. They believed their god cherished them. Yet in the end, He was the one who obliterated them."

"And that is your sin, Lorgar. You couldn't bring yourself to tell them the truth—that their god hated them."

Guilliman's words were like finely-honed power blades, slicing through Lorgar's armor and heart alike.

"I no longer care about such things, Guilliman," Lorgar finally replied, steadying his breath. "You're too blind to understand the magnitude of what I've done."

"You think mere words from ten thousand years ago can shake me?"

Guilliman's lip curled into a half-smile. It wasn't one of amusement—it was predatory.

"I'm not here to shake you. I just want you to hear what became of them... from my own lips. Before you kneel."

Lorgar flinched, uneasy.

"Before the bombardment began, I offered your followers a chance to flee. They refused."

"You built their belief, Lorgar. You gave them purpose in a lie. When that illusion shattered—when they realized their god scorned them—they chose oblivion."

"Do you remember the old artisan?" Guilliman's voice dropped to a near-whisper. "He sculpted your likeness with painstaking care, driven by nothing more than faith and admiration. Shall I tell you how he died?"

"Silence!" the Dark Apostle bellowed, swinging his ornate crozius at his brother.

But with a fluid motion, Guilliman stepped aside—evasive as a shadow.

"The craftsman died at your altar. He couldn't believe his god had forsaken him. He fell to his knees before your statue, desperate. When the Imperial Guard came, he tried to shield your image with his own body. They crushed him—until every shred of flesh and blood became one with your effigy."

"You must die, Guilliman!" Lorgar screamed, his voice breaking into raw hysteria.

The buried wounds of his past—the despair, the shame, the corpses of innocent faith—all erupted in a storm of fury. And Guilliman had unearthed them all.

"The Perfect City died by my command," Guilliman said, voice lowering to a deathly calm. "I gave the exterminatus order. As the orbital bombardment fell and your monuments crumbled, I heard them—your believers, still crying out your name."

He stepped forward, his words a cruel litany.

"Even as they turned to ash, they shouted for you."

Guilliman's tone darkened, his words no longer those of a warrior, but of a judge delivering a sentence.

"Lorgar, the Father of Lies. The Saint of Nothing."

"Guilliman, I swear—I'll tear you limb from limb!" Lorgar howled.

This was the one memory he could not bear, the one wound time could not heal.

He had hoped never to relive the cries of those who believed in him—those who died still begging their false god for salvation.

A darkness, deep and oppressive, engulfed the ruined temple.

From within the shadows came the rustle of raven wings.

But this time, Lorgar did not flee.

He had vowed: Guilliman would die this day—no matter the cost.

He charged forward, teeth bared, fury unchained.

Then, just as his resolve reached its peak, a massive gauntlet seized his wrist, yanking him backward.

He turned, red-eyed and wild—only to meet the storm-dark gaze of Horus.

Under the weight of his brother's gaze, Lorgar's fury slowly ebbed, like fire starved of air. Clarity returned to his thoughts.

"Thank you, brother," Lorgar said quietly, breathing deeply as he recalled what had just happened. "I nearly made a grave mistake."

He had let anger cloud his mind. Had the Night Haunter claimed him then and there, everything he hoped to accomplish would have ended—lost in a moment of blind wrath.

His gratitude toward Horus was sincere.

But Horus did not accept it. His expression remained cold, and he pressed Lorgar sharply. "I agreed to your plan, brother, but you've still kept things from me. Now that we're here, I want everything. No more riddles."

There was something off in his voice—too sharp, too eager. But Lorgar overlooked it. He had, after all, concealed parts of the truth earlier. He assumed this was Horus expressing justifiable displeasure.

"Of course," Lorgar said without hesitation.

The moment he began to speak, his demeanor changed entirely—passion flooded into his words, and his eyes gleamed with fanatical light.

"It all begins with our origin," he said, voice low and reverent. "In the time of the Old Night, the Emperor wandered the stars under false humility, seeking passage to the domain of the immortal gods. He promised offerings—artifacts and knowledge only those ascending to godhood could deliver. In return, the entities of the Warp gave Him power, fragments of their might."

Lorgar's tone darkened.

"But He never intended to repay the debt. He betrayed them. He fused their gifts with His genetic science—and from that heresy, we were born. Demigods of both flesh and the immaterium."

He leaned closer, voice thick with meaning. "The blood of the Warp runs in our veins. The key to our mystery lies in Morro. The true portal is hidden beneath the basalt foundations of Lupacalia."

He paused, watching Horus closely—knowing his brother had been to that world.

Horus only nodded faintly, offering nothing more.

But Lorgar, swept up in his own fervor, pressed on. "Yet even beyond the madness of the Warp, beyond the dominion of the Ruinous Powers, there exists a realm untouched. A sanctuary of primal truth. The convergence of the Eightfold Path. The origin point of all things—where end and beginning are one."

His voice lowered, reverent. "It is there that the true God dwells. Not the false Emperor. Not the fickle powers of the immaterium. The true one. And we shall be the first to breach that sacred threshold."

He smiled with devotion. "You speak of reopening the Gate of Moloch, Horus, of risking everything to seek its treacherous rewards. But what lies behind this door is far greater. A hundred times more potent. More real. A revelation worthy of gods."

Lorgar gazed at Horus with near-desperate hope, the zeal of a prophet burning behind his eyes.

Horus's brow furrowed. "And how can you be certain? How do you know what lies beyond this place will not consume us all?"

"The true God answers," Lorgar said with fervor. "It is not like the lies of the Imperium, nor the false dreams peddled by the Daemon Princes. This one speaks, it guides. It responds."

The Great Speaker was enraptured, filled with an ecstasy that made him seem more a vessel than a man. He had long since cast aside the Emperor as a false deity, stripped even the Ruinous Powers of their supposed divinity. For ten thousand years, he had hunted the Original Truth—and finally, he had found the path.

Only the Raven Lord—Corvus Corax—had stood in his way, hunting him across time and space. But now, with that last gate nearly open, Lorgar stood at the threshold of something greater than any daemon or Primarch could imagine.

He looked at Horus, waiting, breath held.

Horus smiled.

"I see," he said slowly. "So this is your grand plan."

But as Lorgar watched, the smile twisted—became something else entirely.

His heart dropped.

Before him, Horus's face shimmered and contorted, the illusion crumbling like dust in a storm.

And in its place emerged a pale, gaunt face haunted by madness and shadow.

"Konrad Curze?!" Lorgar gasped.

The Great Bearer recoiled, unable to believe what he was seeing.

…

TN:

Support me on P-com/LordMerlin!

⚔️ Limited-time 30% discount!

Get 10 advance chaps for $3.50, 20 for $7, and more — ending soon!