Emperor's Bane

Chapter 725 Bystanders
【what happened? 】

Morgan asked herself this question, and was shocked to find that even her own memory could not give her a correct answer.

She was clearly standing here, standing between Guilliman and Corax, holding Jonson in her arms, and watching Magnus' performance on the podium, until he took out the golden sun from his chest and finally released an impassioned speech, and then the scorching sun slowly rose into the sky.

Up to this point, the Spider Queen's memories were clear and coherent, as pure and flawless as a piece of white paper: but at the very end, at the moment when Magnus's sun rose in front of everyone, a violent fault severed the Primarch's memory chain.

In her mind, there appeared such an obvious black spot that all the memories in it disappeared: to be more specific, from the rising of the Sun to the short period of time when Morgan asked herself, an invisible hand covered the three eyes of the Primarch, making her blind in both the real universe and the warp.

This period of time was not long, only three to five seconds in the real universe, but it was extremely clear and painful: when Morgan realized what was happening, she found that her whole body was soaked in a sticky cold sweat, her luxurious robe was sticking to her skin, and her elegantly groomed long hair was like a frost-bitten banana leaf, absent-mindedly lying behind her neck.

The Primarch raised one hand and instinctively licked the sweat on her wrist: Based on her past experience, this was indeed sweat from fear or other emotions, but what exactly that emotion was seemed to have been drowned in the gaps in her memory.

No! It has to be done properly...

hiss--

As soon as the gears of thinking started turning, a bone-piercing pain interrupted it: even when she had just regained consciousness, the battle between the Emperor and the gods in her mind had not brought the Spider Queen such brutal pain. It was like a steel nail inserted into the Primarch's mind. The unbearable pain was felt later, and would flare up violently as soon as she started to think.

[Damn it…]

Morgan's eyebrows twitched, and she took a deep breath to adjust her mentality, and casually threw away the ceremonial scepter that she had crushed into pieces: When the Primarch opened her eyes again, she found that her blood brothers around her were all in the same situation as her, and their situation was definitely not good.

The air became scorching and sticky, and a sound that the Primarch had never heard before, as if coming from the vast galaxy, was rustling in the dome of Nikea: the Emperor's dazzling light seemed to have disappeared and even became extremely faint, but Morgan realized that he had not really disappeared.

However, the temple of Nikea seemed to have disappeared: the dust on the toes of her boots and the rubble protruding from the corners of her eyes made Morgan realize that she was in a ruin.

How is this...hiss...

The Spider Queen gritted her teeth and scratched her fingers randomly, and happened to grab a thick arm covered by a dusty gown: although she hadn't opened her eyes yet, just by the familiar touch, Morgan realized that this was the brother she was protecting.

【Conrad! 】

She called out loudly and waited for about two seconds before she heard a weak groan from Midnight Haunter's position. It was indeed Conrad's voice, but Morgan had never seen him so weak. His hoarse, deep breathing sounded like that of a seriously ill patient.

【What's going on here? 】

Morgan spat out the ashes in her mouth. She wanted to open her eyes and observe carefully what had just happened, but a heavy force pressed down her eyelids, and the only remaining vision was occupied by blurry illusions: she could only see the brothers nearby struggling to get up from the ground one by one, and the magnificent Temple of Nikea was now only a pile of rubble.

The Primarch turned her head and felt a black trail flash past her at an alarming speed. The strong smell of the Warp made her want to vomit: Morgan was not sure if this was an illusion. She could only try her best to grab Conrad's hair and shake him to prevent him from falling to the ground again or fainting.

【Answer my question! 】

"I have no idea……"

The voice was so hoarse that it created a new fear in Morgan's heart. She didn't even have time to think more. She immediately reached out and hugged Conrad's head, and then directly held him in her arms: the Primarch's fingers searched around with unprecedented panic until they grabbed the nose of the Midnight Haunter. After confirming that her brother was still breathing healthily, Morgan breathed a sigh of relief.

So flustered: like a mother who has just realized her identity.

【I can’t die! 】

"If you keep pinching it, it may not work..."

The voice was still weak, but the stubbornness in his bones made Morgan completely relieved. She tried her best to open her eyes wide and began to search for the other brothers around her: Corax fell beside her, and he and Conrad stood in front of Morgan.

On the other side, Jonson and Guilliman fell together in a very strange posture. It looked like Jonson wanted to protect Guilliman with his body before the explosion, but it was also possible that Guilliman wanted to protect Jonson: in any case, the close brothers who did not have a good relationship were entangled with each other at this time, trying to pull each other off themselves before they could stand up.

Such a separation process was naturally accompanied by endless cursing and pushing. Even though they were equally weak, Jonson and Guilliman still did not intend to let the other side gain any verbal advantage. At least in this way, Morgan was sure that their bodies and minds were still normal.

and so……

[Do you know what happened just now? ]

This is what Morgan cares about the most. No matter how modest she usually is, the Spider Queen is very sure of her dual strength as a Primarch and a top-level psyker.

When she was confused, the entire Temple of Nikea was turned into ruins in front of her, and all the Primarchs including her were knocked to the ground, and even the memory in her mind was wrong?

Who can do such a thing?

Or did the Emperor plan to repeat the story of the Thunder Warriors so early?

Damn, my head starts to hurt again...

"Wait a moment first..."

Amid the murmurs of pain, Conrad's intermittent voice was heard first, and Morgan noticed that her little brother was also holding his forehead tightly like her. The same pain was tormenting all the Primarchs.

"I remember……"

Conrad paused.

"I remember it was Magnus. After he finished his speech, he raised the sun he brought with him. And then, I forgot what happened next...hiss...it was as if someone had stabbed my brain..."

Conrad's painful murmurs only fueled Morgan's annoyance. The Primarch covered her face with her other hand, squeezing her fingertips until they turned white, as if she wanted to tear the entire face off. But at this moment, Conrad's whispers seemed to wake her up, and Morgan seemed to vaguely remember something.

Magnus...

[As I recall, Magnus made a mistake in his last move? ]

The cold wind blowing from nowhere disturbed the Primarch's earlobes. Morgan raised her eyelids with great effort, wanting to observe farther and understand the situation of her brothers and the Emperor across the hall. But a layer of dark clouds pressed down her eyelids tightly. Although she tried her best to look up, she found that her body was somewhat out of control.

Morgan could only vaguely feel that they seemed to be directly under an unprecedented huge object. She was not sure whether it was the real universe or the subspace, but she was sure that she had never seen such a thing before.

She only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg

It was a foul-smelling red base, like the corpse of a rotting animal. After being piled in a garbage dump for too long, the meat had rotted and deteriorated, transforming into a corrupt red mixed with orange, yellow and earth color.

It was like a plate of roast meat that had been left out for too long and had already solidified and cooled, and was then roughly mashed into a paste, with the stench spreading in front of the original body: black shadows were rippling in the bubbles of varying sizes, and the only bit of white matter reminded people of dead skin and physiological nausea.

Morgan spat: the color actually reminded him of Magnus.

Magnus...

Morgan remembered something else: she finally remembered what Magnus had done in the rising sun, where he had explained his ambitions, using the most sophisticated psychic skills in the galaxy to make his words more credible than ever before.

In a few minutes, or even shorter, Magnus' hands performed a variety of splendors that even Morgan had never imagined: he arranged those long-lost ancient psychic skills together like a treasure, with a more magnificent demeanor than the Emperor, more profound experience than Malcador, and more sophisticated skills than Morgan, showing one authentic fantasy world after another in front of everyone.

The memory became clearer and clearer, and Morgan even recalled the envy she felt when she witnessed Magnus's psychic skills: she was sure that some of the extremely difficult techniques used by Magnus were beyond the reach of even Morgan herself, but the Scarlet King was able to do them effortlessly, and it was obvious that he had practiced them countless times in private.

But this magnificent curtain would eventually fall with the end of his performance: when the sun began to slowly set, Morgan vaguely remembered that it was the Emperor or Malcador who asked Magnus to present it, and the Primarch summoned the sun into his palm. It was a very simple psychic technique that even beginners would remember with a little practice.

But... wasn't it at this step that something went wrong?

Morgan rubbed his temple.

[I remember Magnus was performing a psychic trick that even a kid could do, and he missed the sun and smashed it to the ground, and then all of us were stunned by the fire: and then it became like this? ]

【is that so? 】

"Isn't it right?"

Just as Morgan pinched her philtrum, trying to recall more details, Conrad's rebuttal came from in front of her. The condition of Midnight Haunter had improved a lot: what was surprising was that his recovery speed was obviously one stage faster than those of Zhuang Sen or Corax.

Conrad gritted his teeth.

"I remember that Magnus was still not satisfied after finishing his speech and wanted to do something with his sun... I remember he said it was a final ritual? As a result, the sun lost its balance when he performed his skills, and then blew all of us up." [Final ritual?]

Morgan raised her eyebrows: She and Callard were standing so close to each other. They could almost be said to be enjoying the same view, but why didn't she see even the shadow of these words in her memory? She clearly remembered that the sun was slowly setting!

"No, as I remember, Magnus's sun rose directly to the top of the dome. He had no intention of letting his sun set."

"Isn't it right?"

Before Morgan could speak, Corax, who had just recovered, refuted: In fact, the lion farther away recovered faster than the Raven King, but Zhuangsen looked around vigilantly at the first moment and did not immediately join his brothers' discussion.

【What do you remember, Corax?】

Morgan glanced over and saw that in less than a minute since she woke up, her brothers had all recovered. Only Guilliman looked even worse and needed Conrad to walk over and help him up before he could stand up.

"I remember……"

The Crow King paused.

"I remember that when Magnus had just finished his speech, the sun in the sky suddenly shook violently, and then transformed into a monster's face. Magnus was frightened, and all of us fainted from his screams: That should be the face of a monster, right?"

In the end, even Corax himself began to doubt his memory fragments, while Morgan next to him shook her head. She could already guess the truth of the matter: Does each of them have a different memory of this?

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【What about you, Guilliman?】

Morgan noticed that the Macragge was the most embarrassed of all the brothers.

"I?"

He is also the most confused one.

"I……"

Guilliman opened his mouth.

"I don't know. I just remember Magnus giving a speech there. The content of his speech was quite reasonable. As for the sun? I didn't pay much attention to it. I remember it exploded or something in the end. Anyway, I don't remember anything after a flash of white light."

【…】

After a few seconds of silence, Morgan felt that his brain was finally functioning normally. Although the black spots of memory still existed, the pain had quickly gone away. He hurriedly collected his memories, and his blue-green pupils gradually regained their brightness: after a while, he should be able to see things farther away clearly.

[In other words, there is something wrong with Magnus's sun? ]

"Do not."

The last voice came late: Jonson had his back to them all.

【What do you remember, Jonson?】

"It's the Emperor."

The lion's voice was a little strange. He was standing right in front of the four brothers. The body of Caliban was so tall that it almost blocked Morgan's vision. When the lion slowly turned his head, Morgan was a little surprised, because he actually saw a faint fear in those green pupils.

"I saw it with my own eyes: there was a big problem with Magnus's sun. When he was using his speech to attract everyone's attention, the sun used it as a cover to launch an attack on the Emperor on the dome. Then the Emperor personally took action and knocked the sun down to the ground. The subsequent wave swallowed all of us."

This statement, which was so different from the memories of other brothers, was so absurd, but Zhuangsen's tone was so firm. Looking at his silent face, for a moment, Morgan and others began to review their brains again with doubt: but Zhuangsen did not give them time.

"Never mind that!"

The battle-hardened Caliban recovered his strength faster than all his brothers, and while the others were still a little numb, Jonson had already stood in front of Guilliman, stretched out his hand, and helped the Macragge man to stand again, then took care of Conrad and Morgan. After making sure that everyone could at least stand up, the lion had already grasped his sword tightly in his hand.

"Have you regained your sight?"

There was something odd about his tone.

[Why do you ask this? 】

Morgan suddenly felt a great sense of uneasiness in her heart, because as her mind gradually became clearer, her sense of the subspace was gradually recovering: but the Spider Queen soon discovered that, in fact, her perception of the subspace had never disappeared.

It was simply because the pressure space energy she sensed was too chaotic, even more terrifying than the Randan War that year, and even crazier than facing the gods directly: so, she mistakenly thought that there was something wrong with her senses.

But in fact……

"look up."

Jonson gripped his sword tighter, his voice taking on a long-lost seriousness, the kind of emphasis a Caliban would use only when he and Morgan were facing their most formidable adversaries.

"Our enemies are above: Magnus has summoned the demons of Purgatory."

【demon……】

Morgan raised her head. She wanted to ask something more, but the confusion in the second half of her sentence was torn into pieces by the hatred that surged into her eyes.

[The Emperor is above...]

What did she see?
Countless corrupt dragons crisscrossed above their heads, and tens of millions of dirty red dragons blended together, weaving a dense web until every inch of the sky above their heads was swallowed up: they devoured each other, fought and bit each other, leading to the very center of the sky, to a gloomy end like a black hole.

They seemed to be at the top of a dirty and corrupt vortex, about to be sucked into an endless purgatory: the huge eye across the sky was waiting for them in the eye of the typhoon of invisible wind, its dark gaze slowly sprinkled on the Primarchs, touching their souls.

And it changed them forever.

And at that end, an eye so huge was watching them all, an eye larger than a star, a terrifying eye that Morgan felt so familiar and so creepy, far away in the sky, but larger than all of Nikea.

That is……

"what is that?"

Jonson's voice was trembling.

"Tell me, Morgan: what is that?"

【…】

Morgan was silent for a moment, her lips trembling at the absurdity of the moment.

【That is... the Emperor.】

"……Do not."

Zhuang Sen was stunned for a moment. He looked further away, where there was a warm light like a morning star: that was the direction that originally belonged to the Lord of Mankind. The platform under his feet was the only building still standing.

"The Emperor is there. I can feel it."

Jonson was convinced.

"But…what is this? Morgan?"

[I said it.]

The Spider Queen thought she was laughing: but tears of horror were gathering in her eyes.

[That... is also the Emperor...]

(End of this chapter)