Chapter 30:
Apotheosis "Sanguinius. It should have been him. He has the vision and strength to carry us to victory, and the wisdom to rule once victory is won. For all his aloof coolness, he alone has the emperor's soul in his blood. Each of us carries part of our father within us, whether it is his hunger for battle, his psychic talent or his determination to succeed. Sanguinius holds it all. It should have been his..."
- Horus Lupercal The Godhand was no more.
I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would
christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching around my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not
satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The
Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of
every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord.
The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a
chance. It was with that
grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A
house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant
everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A
thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the
anathema. What I had become? It would lead to
transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That
stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope. <<X>>
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had
relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone.
It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There was stories that had not always been the case, and that it had
another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These
myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could
only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been
desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless valkyries. These sisters of battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. Who had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the
mortification I felt now.
It was all poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had
known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury. The grievous miracle did not come without a consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage.
The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable compulsion. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in it. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
