My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 382: Hades Has a Bad Feeling
[The Cocytus]
On the completely dark stone corridor echoed the crisp yet heavy sound of hurried footsteps. Even the gold that had been polished to flawless perfection appeared dull in such darkness, like ordinary metal.
Charon stepped across the gently flowing river of blood. Dampness left marks on the soles of his boots. The deepest darkness was gazing at him; within the gloom, eerie green light was the only source of illumination.
Beneath his helmet, Charon took a subtle deep breath. He caught that familiar scent—
Charon suddenly pushed open the door.
"Lord of the Underworld, urgent news. Please stop eating."
At the steel dining table, Charon saw Hades slowly turn his head.
Hades held a bowl in one hand, while on the other side, Korklan was holding a pot, about to add more food for the Lord of the Underworld.
Hades blinked, first making a difficult swallowing motion, then looked at Charon.
"What happened? Say it."
Hades casually turned his head back again, signaling Korklan not to pour more. This was enough.
Charon took a deep breath, stood at attention, and saluted.
"The Master of Mankind has ordered the entire Silent Sisterhood to immediately proceed to the Obscurus Segmentum, Cygnus X-1. The plan to head to the Luna Wolves has been cancelled in advance. The Legions near the Cygnus sector have also received orders and are awaiting your command."
Charon saw Hades stop struggling with Korklan over the ladle. The Lord of the Underworld froze.
"That's all?" Hades' voice rang out.
Charon nodded.
"Warp communications are becoming increasingly difficult. Part of the information was lost—or rather, this is the most complete message we were able to receive."
Hades slowly put down the bowl.
"Alright… let me take a look…"
A message with neither beginning nor end, ordering him to go straight to the Obscurus Segmentum, even abandoning Horus' front—what could possibly be happening?
In just a few breaths, Hades had already conceived countless possibilities.
He pulled up the star map. Cygnus X-1… let him find it—
?!
The Eye of Terror?!
Hades' breathing stalled.
Charon stood rigidly at attention. The Lord of the Underworld rose in silence, red light sharply fixing on the Custodian.
"All forces change course. Full speed to the Eye of Terror—Cygnus X-1. Prepare for battle."
Charon immediately departed. Hades remained standing in place, silent, as if deep in thought.
Korklan kept quiet, waiting calmly at the Lord of the Underworld's side.
After a long silence, the Magos heard the Lord of the Underworld let out a deep sigh. With a trace of melancholy, he sat down and began eating what would be the last dinner he could have while seated.
. . .
Regarding the Horus Heresy, Hades had already envisioned countless possibilities.
He could even accept Mortarion being the first to fall to corruption, or various bizarre apocrypha—such as the Fallen Angels… The only thing that could truly shock Hades would be an apocryphal Emperor.
But according to the biological observation reports he had gathered while near Neoth, Hades had always believed that the Emperor could not possibly take the apocryphal path.
The original Horus Heresy was, in essence, a campaign launched by the Four Gods to force the Emperor to ascend to godhood and become the Dark King.
Following the logic of the original canon: if the Emperor did not ascend in 30K, then under the relentless accumulation of humanity's faith, the Emperor would eventually be forced to become the Dark King anyway.
However, after being prayed to for several thousand—or even ten thousand—years, and absorbing the faith of countless believers, the God-Emperor's power would be far greater than that of the current Emperor. At that point, his ascension would become a true catastrophe—not only for humanity, but for the Four Gods as well.
In the original canon, the solution was to seat the Emperor on the Golden Throne, half-dead, eternally bug-locked. But the moment the Emperor stood up from the Throne, the apocalypse would descend.
As Hades toyed with the Emperor's middle finger bone, he thought:
The Emperor clearly did not wish to ascend. In the original story, the Emperor mounting the Golden Throne, and now the Emperor handing the finger bone to Hades, were both attempts to suppress faith, in order to avoid godhood.
But this ran counter to the expectations of the Four Gods. They desired the Emperor's ascension—or rather, to prevent humanity's faith from stirring a catastrophic tide in the Warp, the species called "humanity" had to produce a god, someone to take a seat among the powers of the Immaterium.
In the original canon, the final battle between Horus and the Emperor unfolded exactly like this: the dead became sacrifices, while the living ascended as a Dark God. No matter who won or lost, the Four Gods would have achieved what they desired. Unfortunately for them, the Emperor exploited a loophole by means of the Golden Throne.
Hades pondered this, staring at the finger bone before him, and realized he had made a mistake—
If one reasoned from purpose, then the Four Gods' ultimate target was not the Primarchs, nor was it simply to tear the Imperium apart, nor even the final battle on Terra…
Yet all of the deductions and countermeasures Hades and the Emperor had devised were built upon the premise of preventing a Primarch rebellion.
Hades took a deep breath. Why hadn't the Emperor realized this? Hades recalled how the Emperor had asked him to go to Horus' side… Had Neoth panicked? Was that it? Or had he seen something in Tzeentch's prophecies that caused him to fixate solely on the Primarchs?
The Primarchs were not Their primary target. Hades thought silently.
The vision of the Four Gods was simple: to make the Emperor ascend to godhood.
Then… Hades thought slowly… who, right now, was the stumbling block preventing the Emperor from ascending?
Who was it?
Hades put away the finger bone and silently covered his eyes. He let out a sigh. The Emperor had really set him up this time, he might as well have gone to Horus' side instead.
Since the Four Gods' target was not the Primarchs, then the rest was easy to deduce.
Hades stared at the map.
The Eye of Terror.
He murmured it to himself.
This was aimed at him.
Hades was absolutely certain of it.
This was definitely aimed at him. In the Eye of Terror, the Warp and the physical world were almost fused together. If the Warp's intensity grew too high, his Black Domain would be suppressed.
But Hades still had to go.
Because that place was the Eye of Terror.
The Eye of Terror in the Obscurus Segmentum had been torn open by the psychic storm born from Slaanesh's emergence. To prevent the Warp from expanding further, the ancient spacefaring Necrons had once erected blackstone pylons across a series of worlds within the Eye, stabilizing the physical space of the region.
As for the Eye of Terror… the story Hades knew best came from 40K. Abaddon deliberately destroyed the Necrons' blackstone pylons that suppressed the Warp, and with the final collapse of Cadia, the defenses restraining the Eye of Terror completely fell apart. A massive Warp storm erupted, tearing the entire Imperium in two.
If Chaos truly intended to make a grand move at the Eye of Terror—to rip the Imperium open—then Hades had no choice but to go there. Because if the Eye of Terror were truly opened wide, and half the Imperium's territory were engulfed by Warp turbulence… the resulting catastrophe would be no less severe than a Primarch rebellion.
Moreover, once Legions were dragged into the dark side of the Warp, that would mean those Legions and their Primarchs would be directly exposed to the gaze of the Four Gods. Designing the corruption of Primarchs at that point would lead to consequences too terrible to imagine.
In other words, Hades now knew that the Four Gods were targeting him, and he also knew they were preparing to use the Eye of Terror against him. Yet he still had to go to the Eye of Terror to stop the eruption of a Warp storm, because there truly was no one more suitable than him, someone who had foreseen the events of 40K.
After all, this campaign would mean fighting daemons, and only the Silent Sisterhood had experience with such things… The Death Guard and the World Eaters were currently far too distant from the Obscurus Segmentum.
Hades wailed inwardly.
This was 30K!
During the era of the Great Crusade, the Imperium's armies had virtually no experience fighting daemons. And what filled Hades with even greater despair was that, in 30K, the Imperium had not conquered the regions near the Eye of Terror at all—that was Chaos' territory.
Hades silently swallowed.
Which meant that if he did not intervene in the fate of the Imperium, the Four Gods would simply choose the conventional path of corrupting the Primarchs. But now, the Emperor had already decided to use him to constantly hurl filth into the Warp and flip the table.
And so the Four Gods… naturally could choose to open the Eye of Terror instead.
On one side, the Emperor was opening the Imperial Cult early in 30K; on the other, the Four Gods were opening the Eye of Terror early in 30K. Stop accelerating the version updates already!
Hades took a deep breath. Staring at the star map, he decided to stop cursing the Emperor and the Four Gods. He casually circled the location of the Eye of Terror on the map.
The two Legions closest to the Eye of Terror were… the Iron Hands and the Iron Warriors, who had just finished mopping up the remnants of Ullanor.
Which would it be?
Hades wondered. The Silent Sisterhood could only receive blurred astropathic messages from Terra; descriptions concerning specific individuals had been erased.
Had both Legions rebelled? Or neither? Were the Four Gods using other forces to stir up trouble at the Eye of Terror?
And moreover… Hades paused. In the original canon, it was Abaddon who destroyed the blackstone pylons and thus released the Eye of Terror. But blackstone pylons themselves also possessed the function of amplifying psychic power. If the Four Gods truly wanted to play big…
Hades began calling for the King of Figurines in his mind, but unfortunately Trazyn hadn't installed any communication function for him. The last time at the Great Rift, the King of Figurines hadn't shown up either.
In the original canon, Trazyn did appear at the Eye of Terror, but the reason he was able to arrive was because a bell among his collections suddenly rang.
And that bell… Hades thought silently—that damn thing was a product of the Imperial Cult! Where it even was in 30K was anyone's guess!
Though he very much wanted to call in allies, Hades still prepared himself for the possibility that there would be no one to come to his aid.
On the map, aside from the two Iron Legions closest to the Eye of Terror, there were also the Emperor's Children to the northeast and the Raven Guard to the northwest. Under the premise of unreliable Warp travel, it would still take both Legions some time to reach the Eye of Terror.
What's more… Hades wasn't even sure whether they had received Terra's edict.
He couldn't even be certain whether the Iron Hands and the Iron Warriors had received Terra's edict at all.
Hades let out another long sigh. Fortunately, before parting, the Emperor and Malcador had given him some tokens of authority.
The best-case scenario was that both Iron Legions remained uncorrupted and were willing to assist him in holding the Eye of Terror. The worst-case scenario would be that both Legions had already fallen.
On the map, Hades deduced the possible course of the battle… and not just at the Eye of Terror. Hades was certain the Four Gods would also want to stir up trouble elsewhere while his and the Emperor's attention was diverted.
…Horus.
The Warmaster was the first person Hades thought of.
But what could he do?
Hades fell silent. Even if he tried to warn Horus to be cautious, that information might be lost in the already unstable Warp communications.
He stared at the map. Horus was not far from Baal at the moment… Hades thought that if Horus truly sensed something was wrong with himself, he would go to seek help from the Angel.
Sanguinius on his homeworld—Hades thought—the probability of corruption was very low. The only Primarchs who had been ambushed and fallen on their homeworlds were Mortarion and Angron, those two unfortunate souls. Under normal circumstances, the Great Angel should be able to steady Horus.
Hades sighed once more.
He could only go to one place. For now, he could only leave the other Primarchs to their own fates.
Within the limits of time and possibility, Hades and the Emperor had already done everything they could to prepare the Primarchs.
And now, it was the time of trial.
<+>
If you want to see more chapter of this story and don't mind paying $5 each month to read the latest posted chapter, please go to my Patreon [1]
Latest Posted Chapter in Patreon: Chapter 421: Guilliman Scores Some Points[2]
Link to the latest posted chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/152512330?collection=602520[3]
https://www.patreon.com/collection/602520?view=condensed[4]
[1] https://www.patreon.com/Thatsnakegirl
[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/152512330?collection=602520
[3] https://www.patreon.com/posts/152512330?collection=602520
[4] https://www.patreon.com/collection/602520?view=condensed