189: Close the Eyes of Fear

The Star God Law Blades of the Dawn's Light were still being polished, and the Slaanesh remains within the Sweet Cage were still decomposing. Meanwhile, the Eye of Terror—that festering wound that had occupied the heart of the galaxy for ten thousand years—finally began to emit a scream of being overwhelmed before the Human Federation's Firmament Network.

This was not mercy, nor was it salvation. This was a surgical excision, a civilization-level removal of a lesion.

The Nullifier Network had expanded from its initial Seven-Pointed Star into a colossal megastructure covering three thousand light-years around the Eye of Terror. Thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and seventy-two Nullifier nodes, like so many dark-gold steel nails driven into the heart of the Warp, resonated and anchored one another, forcibly dragging sector after sector of starry sky—desecrated by Chaos for millennia—back into the cold embrace of reality.

And at this moment, Han Zhe signed the long-awaited order:

“Finality Protocol: Firmament Closure. Objective: Completely seal the equatorial belt of the Eye of Terror from the Core of Sorrow to the Crimson Breach. Excise at least half of this galactic cancer.”

The moment the order was executed, the Eye of Terror boiled.

This was no metaphor. Warp energy surged from the depths of the rift like venomous wasps from a disturbed nest. The bridgehead that the Chaos Gods had relied upon to invade reality for ten thousand years was being stripped away inch by inch by these 'ignorant' mortals of the Human Federation using steel and order. This was a desecration they would never allow.

Khorne was the first to respond.

The blood-colored star fortress, the Skull Throne Stronghold, forcibly leaped from the depths of the Warp. Its volume was so massive it resembled a planet. The Blood God's eighth Bloodthirster Prince—Karbha, the ancient Khorne Daemon Prince who had nearly torn Sanguinius apart during the Siege of Terra—set foot on the battlefield of reality once again after ten thousand years.

Every flap of its wings whipped up a psychic hurricane, and every roar implanted a killing impulse into the consciousness of all sentient beings within ten light-years. Following closely behind were seventeen Bloodthirster warbands, thirty-two Bloodletter legions, and trillions of low-level Khorne daemons of various forms. They needed no formation, no tactics; they only needed blood and skulls.

“Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!!!”

This battlefield roar, which transcended species and language, slammed into the easternmost defense line of the Firmament Network—the keystone node of the Seven-Pointed Star Network: Zeroing Node-7—like a physical wave of blood.

Nurgle's response followed immediately.

It was not a violent assault, but a corruption. What poured from the Warp rift was a thick, nauseating green mist. Wherever the mist passed, void crystal plating rusted, Living Alloy armor sprouted mold, and even the interior of the abyss of order's energy conduits began to pulse with unholy biological rhythms.

The Great Unclean One of Nurgle, Kugath—the Father of Plagues, an ancient daemon who had sown ultimate mercy across countless worlds—slowly entered the battlefield riding a rotting bronze palanquin pulled by Nurglings. Behind him were over thirty Unclean Ones and Plaguebearers of various sizes, as well as an endless swarm of Nurgle Plaguebearers, Rot Flies, and Plague Toads that nearly eclipsed the starlight.

“Do not resist. Pain is a gift, death is a release. Life is eternal, all things return to rot,” Kugath’s deep, viscous whisper, sounding as if squeezed from rotting lungs, penetrated all psychic shielding to echo in the depths of every defender's consciousness.

Tzeentch's arrival was the most treacherous.

There were no vast legions, no shocking phenomena. Space itself simply began to err: three adjudicator-class battleships that were turning inexplicably collided head-on; the synchronization signals of two Nullifier nodes experienced an impossible phase shift, causing the local Order Field to fall into a self-contradictory logical loop; a technical officer performing a routine data review suddenly received a segment of paradoxical sixteen-dimensional code disguised as an adjudicator command. Had his mind not been reinforced by Hate-Forging, giving him a near-instinctive rejection of any irrational intrusion, that code would have been enough to turn him into Tzeentch's most exquisite plaything.

Then, the Chief Lord of Change under Tzeentch—Kairos Fateweaver, that twisted being with two heads possessing the past and the future but forever unable to perceive the present—emerged from a rift composed of pure possibility.

He did not truly appear; rather, He made His presence here a fact that all observers had to accept. Accompanying Him were twelve Lords of Change, nine warbands of Horrors of Tzeentch, and a desecrated legion composed entirely of units that had never existed in the past, must exist now, and would be forgotten in the future.

Finally, and most deadly, was Slaanesh.

Even though His core avatar, the Prince of Pleasure, had been imprisoned by the Human Federation in the depths of the Tomb of Time, this evil god who presided over ultimate pleasure and endless pain did not retreat due to the loss of one avatar.

On the contrary, imprisoning His avatar was like teasing a sleeping venomous snake with a fine needle. Slaanesh's rage and fanaticism were pushed to the peak by the Human Federation's desecration.

The Lord of Pleasure's response was not a legion, but a song. A symphonic poem coming from the depths of the Warp, soul-consuming and bone-eroding, enough to make listeners willingly tear open their own chests to accommodate more of the melody.

Wherever the singing passed, even Khorne's Bloodthirsters experienced a momentary lapse in focus. And within this heavenly singing, the oldest and most perfect hedonist under Slaanesh—Lady Slaanesh, the Daemonette of Sound, the Daemon Prince who could make stars fall with her exquisite voice—led dozens of Keepers of Secrets and Fiends of Slaanesh onto the battlefield with steps so elegant they were heartbreaking.

They were in no hurry to attack. They simply sang and danced, and their beauty itself was a desecration of order and a mockery of reason.

The combined counterattack of the Four Chaos Gods was of a scale and complexity far exceeding any historical record. But what truly sent a chill down Alpha-01's spine were the even rarer, more taboo figures following behind these four daemonic legions.

The Chaos Primarchs.

The betrayers, the fallen, the Emperor's rebellious sons, the enemies of humanity.

Fulgrim, The Phoenician, Primarch of the Emperor's Children, the eternal bridegroom of Slaanesh. His—or rather, its—body was no longer flesh, but a flowing liquid metal shimmering with a lethal aesthetic.

He stood barefoot in the void, every step treading out lotus-shaped Warp ripples. Wherever his gaze fell, even the most loyal Astartes would begin to question their vows. Wherever his voice reached, even the most rational mortal would kneel to praise that perfection beyond understanding. He smiled calmly, as if attending an appointment ten thousand years in the making.

Magnus, Primarch of the Thousand Sons, the Supreme Greater Daemon of Tzeentch. The crimson giant tore through reality in the void, his single eye like a burning miniature star.

Behind him was the Thousand Sons legion that had been cursed for ten thousand years. Their flesh had long since turned to dust, leaving only phantoms condensed from Warp dust, but their will to betray the Emperor was more blazing than that of any living being.

Mortarion, the Lord of Death, Nurgle's eternal knight. Clouds of stench enveloped his withered body, and every breath he took left a plague nebula in the void that would never dissipate. His Deathshroud rustled in the vacuum, like a premature funeral summons for the entire star sector.

Angron, the Father of Blood, the incarnation of Khorne's fury. He no longer spoke, no longer thought, and no longer bore any trace of being human. He was the manifestation of rage itself, a pure destruction that even physical laws could not bind. He needed no legion; he was the catastrophe.

Four Chaos Primarchs, four taboo existences, gathered at the Eye of Terror for the first time in ten thousand years. They had only one goal: to tear apart the desecrated web that was stitching the Eye of Terror shut, and to crush the Human Federation's pride along with its fleet into the eternal darkness of the Warp.

And behind them, more Chaos princes, greater daemons, fallen champions, and traitor warbands were poised like a boundless tide of desecration in the gap between the Warp and reality.