Emperor's Bane

Chapter 1030 The Role of Role Models
Ever since he parted ways with Ulanno, he has been able to hear this sound from the subspace.

Their sounds came and went, like music lingering in the air, always lingering in his ears wherever he went.

They were so real, as if an invisible snake was coiled around his shoulder, flicking its tongue and hissing.

They smiled at him, sang his praises, mocked him, and scorned him.

They laughed and cursed, they acted like madmen, they picked up the roaring drums and played a venomous, muffled sound in his mind, like thousands of fanatics urging each other on like livestock, the frenzied and turbulent sound enough to exhaust anyone.

Like prophetic monsters, they arrived as predicted the instant the sacred curtain fell on Ulanor, the moment the flagships of the Primarchs set sail and plunged into Mandeville Point, and at the juncture where the concept of the Emperor's departure from the Great Crusade had become a reality.

They have waited for this day for far too long.

The emperor's departure was like a whistle, setting the stage for this unseen competition.

The gods, grinding their teeth and sucking blood, eagerly crawled out of the abyss where they hid and pounced on the creatures no longer protected by the sun.

Before that cold, cursed being completes his dream and returns to the real universe fueled by rage and hope, the Chaos beings have little time left to seize the spoils.

This is a silent competition, a gamble that involves the entire galaxy.

One side firmly believes that loyalty and nobility can overcome evil thoughts, while the other side attempts to corrupt these ignorant minds with chaos.
They placed their bets on each chosen son of God, then watched with cold eyes as these poor, high-ranking people struggled to survive in a completely different world.

The gamblers on both sides of the table seemed to have absolute confidence in their hole cards, but they also couldn't control the fate of each chip, because a different wind had blown away everyone's initial plans. Those prey and prizes that were touted as the chosen ones seemed to be heading down different paths without them realizing it.

Some were lucky; they were either too ordinary or simply lucky, and were not considered the focus of the game. Although they were also swept up by the increasingly violent winds of the times, advancing with their own territories and legions in a daze, no one ever really paid attention to them.

But others, some who are better, or simply more special: they are the unfortunate ones.

They were being closely watched from the very beginning; they themselves were the storm in this tempest, and the gamblers at the card table longed to have them in their grasp.

The moment Ulano's curtain fell, symbolizing the official start of this game, the merciless hands seized these outstanding "lucky ones," showering them with both favor and calamity, yearning for their submission, and wanting them to suffer, hoping that when the flames of war ignite, their faces will have become the images the gods desire.

Of all the lucky ones, perhaps no one was luckier than Sanguis de Bar.

He may not be the favorite of any gambler.

But every player sitting at the table, qualified to stack chips, reserved a special spot for this Bal man in their display case.

The struggle for this archangel was fierce from the very beginning.

This situation is reflected in reality: the suffering surrounding Baal and the Ninth Legion was, from the very beginning, the most unbearable.

Saint Gilles faced the same situation.

Almost the day after he left Ulanor, the sounds of the Warp, like vultures drawn by the stench, swarmed toward the Primarch from all directions.

At first, they were just waves, a minor scabies problem that didn't need to be taken seriously, something that could be ignored by simply focusing one's attention on something else.

This situation persisted for a long time: for about thirty to forty years.

The gods showed great patience.

During this period, what truly troubled Saint Gilles was the situation within the legions and territories.

Unlike the ambitious man to the south, Baal's archangels did not find much irresistible allure in their rule: Mortarion cared about absolute power and the absolute freedom it brought, but these were not things that concerned the archangels.

Or rather, he will never lack power and freedom whenever he wants: the angels have no urgency about it.

On the contrary, ruling over thousands of worlds and countless people bored Saint Gilles.

Unbearable boredom.

This was a simple, endless form of torture.

Especially after the start of the new era of the Great Crusade, the intensity of this torture also increased.

Baal was a land filled with suffering, and with the arrival of those voices, the suffering that befell Baal and the Ninth Legion only intensified.

In the fifty years following Ulanno, the natural disasters and man-made calamities that occurred on Bal were more numerous than during the entire Great Expedition combined: violent storms and persistent extreme weather seemed to never cease, priceless rivers and groundwater dried up one after another, and even the subspace realm surrounding the Bal system was frequently troubled and blocked by unprovoked storms.

As for smaller disasters, such as plagues whose sources cannot be traced, sudden wars between tribes and the world over trivial matters, and engineering and government projects that have undergone numerous inspections and ingenious planning but still have to be delayed or even collapse midway due to various inexplicable reasons, they are no longer worth the Primarch's concern.

It's not that I don't want to, but there's just too much: so much that even the gentlest archangel would become numb.

A series of disasters, too many to count.

Even though Archangel Baal did everything in his power, including seeking help from the outside world as much as possible, taking the lead in several large-scale disaster relief operations, and trying his best to develop and improve the natural environment of the various worlds under his command, his achievements were still insignificant: the people of the Holy Blood Angels could only barely survive on this land and avoid extinction.

This is no longer something that can be changed by human effort.

The environment on Baal was deteriorating year by year, to the point that even the Mechanicus's use of their planetary terraforming technology was ineffective.

All the modification projects either collapsed suddenly midway due to various unforeseen reasons, or were swallowed up by new disasters after only one or two years of effect: there was even an instance where a Mechanicus fleet that came through a warp storm found that this trump card, which had never had any adverse reactions in the millions of worlds of the Empire, was going out of control because of a small virus on Baal.

And the timing of this virus's emergence was exactly seven days before the arrival of this Mechanicus fleet.

If we still say that this is just a matter of luck in reality, then we are being far too superstitious.

But this is not the most troubling problem for Saint Gilles.

Although the archangel cherished his people, he was not like Guilliman. In his view, he had done everything for Baal and the surrounding universe: since fate and those unpredictable malices had rendered all the efforts of the Ninth Legion futile, he had no need to carry such a psychological burden.

He will mourn, he will grieve.

But he wouldn't torment himself over it or let his spirit break down.

Baal is important, but not important enough to defeat Sanguis.

The archangel understood this principle.

Unfortunately, some people also understood.

So when Sanguiles finally became indifferent to his own territory, waiting for Terra or the Wolf God to take it away one day, he relinquished his throne and political affairs with a clear conscience and turned to participate in the Terra crisis instigated by Horus.

And when he returned from the crisis.

His legion has run into trouble.

This is far more than the small-scale antics of Baal.

……

Thirst.

That single word is enough to wake even the fearless archangel from his midnight sleep, sending a chill down his spine.

When it actually appears in the real universe, returning like a long-lost adversary, the threat it poses to the entire Ninth Legion is far greater than any war in the Great Crusade: even the most ferocious aliens could not wipe out the Blood Angels, but this enemy hidden in the bloodline could.

The process by which Saint Gilles and his descendants fought against this old foe is well-documented, and judging solely from the outcome, they were certainly not the winners.

When the archangels abandoned all hope and decided to seek allies from the outside world, the spread of thirst within the Ninth Legion could only be barely suppressed.

It has not been eradicated, nor is there any way to temporarily contain it scientifically. The Blood Angels are simply dealing with this formidable foe using the most rudimentary methods: exercising extreme self-discipline under very clear and strict military regulations, and striking hard against any brother who shows signs of losing control, doing everything in their power to limit the danger to its very first stage.

Even so, there was nothing good that Saint Gilles could do about the five-figure number of patients who had already infiltrated the entire Bal enclave.

But that's not the most troublesome part.

What frightens the angels most is that this new form of bloodthirst has shown a disturbing evolutionary tendency compared to over a hundred years ago.

The new Bloodthirst is refining its art of destruction almost every moment, constantly generating more powerful and intelligent variants, growing its strength where the Blood Angels cannot see.

They were no longer insane, no longer savage. Those newly afflicted with bloodthirst and loss of control were even able to suppress their power at the very beginning, making it difficult even for the most seasoned Holy Blood Angels to discern their true nature. These latent beings could use this opportunity to escape and unleash a thousand times more terrifying catastrophes outside the Legion's sight. This extreme rate of evolution could no longer be explained by real-world science.

This is what Saint Gilles' wisdom told him.

So, after the archangel Baal dissected one out-of-control offspring after another, he left the laboratory and the library, exhausted, and never returned.

He began to seek help in another area: frequently summoning the Legion's best think tanks and mortal psionicists, searching through past warp archives, and even communicating privately with the Star Speakers and Navigators.

In the end, when the Holy Blood Angels tied yet another out-of-control person to the operating table, what awaited him was no longer Saint Gilles' scalpel: but a pair of complex eyes and a hand burning with psionic fire.

No one knows what happened in the operating room that day.

But one thing is certain: the archangel did not save his offspring.

But his confidence only grew stronger.

The archangel began to gradually advance along this path.

Until those voices, those business dealings that had lingered since leaving Ulano, those voices that Saint Gilles thought had left, returned at this moment.

They had been waiting for this day, waiting for Saint Gilles to embark on the path of actively seeking them out.

And they stood at the end of the road, filled with anticipation and arrogance, waiting for the ultimate prize to draw ever closer.

……

then.

They were disappointed.

……

Saint Gilles is not Magnus.

Perhaps he was, but he was at least a luckier Magnus.

Because there is a real Magnus who has already paved the way for the archangel Baal.

To be more specific, just as the whispers of the subspace returned, and just as Saint Gilles was feeling somewhat exhausted and was about to abandon science and turn to the Sea of ​​Chaos for a solution, a brand new memory suddenly appeared in his mind.

That's right: it's about Nicaea.

This might sound like a bit too much of a coincidence.

But the archangel, through his connections and methods, learned something rather unbelievable.

In fact, after Ulanor, after the Emperor's glory could no longer protect his offspring, most of the Primarchs who began to act independently awakened some memories of Nicaea at some point during this half-century.

Their memories differed in detail and from different perspectives, but there was one thing that everyone could clearly say.

Their memories clearly tell them how Magnus manipulated powers he couldn't control, and how tragically he ended up suffering the backlash from the warp.

And when these Primarchs remember all this, they are often preparing to go further in the Warp.

This sounds like a safeguard left by the Lord of Mankind to prevent some of his offspring from committing heinous folly after his departure.

What could be more terrifying to those who come after than a hanging, bloody corpse?
This may be Magnus's greatest contribution to all of humanity and the entire empire.

His death was more significant than his contributions while alive.

At least, this scene frightened Saint-Gilles.

Even though the situation of the Ninth Legion had deteriorated to the point where a solution was urgently needed, and even with all the wisdom and means the Archangels had exhausted, they still could not find an answer in the real universe.

But just one glance is enough to recall Magnus's pitiful appearance in his memory.

But if you just think back a little, where is the once-famous Thousand Sons Legion now?
Saint Gilles hesitated for a long time, but in the end he did not take his first step into the vast ocean.

He flinched.

Because of caution: and also because of fear.

Amidst the gods' lamentations, the archangel temporarily turned his gaze away from the direction of the warp.

However, the crisis facing the Legion remains, which is why the powerful beings in the warp are so emboldened.

So, with both paths cut off, the Archangel Baal had no choice but to take a risky gamble and use a short letter to open the gates of the Far East.

He knew the chances of doing so were slim, but it was almost the last possible path in the real universe.

It has been proven that the thirst for blood is not a purely genetic and scientific issue; it is at least partly influenced by the subspace, which has led to genetic chaos and physical mutations in the Holy Blood Angels.

As for understanding physical mutations, who in the galaxy can compare to Senji?

And when it comes to the chaos of genetic seeds, who in the galaxy can compare to the Dawnbreakers?

And when it comes to the control of psychic energy, and among those known to Sanguires who, at least, wouldn't immediately report this matter to the Emperor, who can compare to the Lord of Avalon?
From this perspective, the Far Eastern frontier is a place that Saint Gilles must personally visit no matter what.

He wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing.

But he knew that when he ordered an urgent visit to Avalon, the warp voices that he always heard with such ease suddenly carried an anxiety that even he could detect.

This is enough to prove that this is at least not a wrong conclusion.

However, the archangel underestimated the galaxy.

After navigating his ship into Mandeville Point, he once again stepped into the abyss of the warp.

He then realized just how powerful the whispers of the subspace that seemed to only bother him in his ear were actually hiding.
What they could offer him was far more than just the seemingly harmless temptations and persuasion in their whispers.

When the energy of the warp permeated the Iron Curtain and quietly radiated onto Archangel Baal.

After he opened his eyes.

The whole world before his eyes.

In an instant, he changed his appearance.

Illusions flickered, light and shadow shattered, and nightmarish omens plunged him into an ice cave, only to throw him into a fiery hell, where a future of doomsday was burning fiercely, like the god of dusk singing in a decaying hell. They appeared before him with such clarity and realism.

No, not in front of us.
They are standing in his mind.

They are facts, not illusions; they are a shattered, irresistible tide that easily crushed Saint Les's proud resilience, repeatedly eroding the archangel's already crumbling sanity. They laid everything intolerable before him, hammering it into his mind again and again, like a nail.

They began to chant prophecies for him.

So terrifying.

That's insane.

so true.

And so... it collapsed.

……

At that moment, he suddenly began to understand Conrad.

(End of this chapter)