"I see. Truly an astonishing capability."
As the feeling of weightlessness subsided from around his body, Lion El'Jonson opened his eyes to find himself standing in a completely unfamiliar space.
By this time, the banquet had concluded.
After a brief period of rest and reorganization, the Primarchs had each tended to their pressing Legion affairs.
Shortly after, they assembled once more.
Only this time, they were no longer on Macragge—in fact, they were no longer even within the bounds of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Adam had deployed his covert council space once again.
It was a seamless transition without a single trace of warning.
After all, as everyone knew, in any secretive plot or private council, random eavesdroppers would inevitably spawn out of nowhere.
Such was the heavy hand of providence.
Looking across the Warhammer universe, were not the Four Gods of Chaos the premier contenders for being the most adept—and the most obsessive—when it came to peeking into places they shouldn't?
Entering this place for the first time, Lion El'Jonson, Primarch of the First Legion, was clearly brimming with curiosity.
Narrowing his eyes slightly, he continuously scanned his surroundings, his gaze sweeping across the shifting starlight and geometric patterns of illumination as he attempted to deduce the fundamental principles behind the construction of this realm.
'Where exactly is this place?'
'It isn't the Warp.'
That conclusion took shape in his mind almost instantly.
As a Primarch, Lion possessed an innate, razor-sharp sensitivity to the ebbs and flows of the Warp, yet here, he could not detect even a whisper of that chaotic dimension's presence.
It was like a third realm entirely independent of both the materium and the Warp, existing securely under laws that Lion found wholly incomprehensible.
'Incredible.'
'Where on earth did Father locate a talent like this?'
Lion was exceedingly curious.
However, he was not Magnus. The Lion of Caliban was never one to make unnecessary moves out of superfluous curiosity.
He curbed his thirst for knowledge impeccably, took silent steps forward, located his empty seat at the round table, and sat down in a dignified posture.
The meeting officially commenced.
"First, let us compile and organize our intelligence," Adam said, standing at the head of the council table facing the gathered Primarchs, his voice smooth and clear. "Lion El'Jonson, speak first and detail your experiences within the Webway."
Behind him loomed a towering, majestic statue of the Emperor.
The statue was virtually indistinguishable from the classic depictions seen throughout the Imperium—solemn, silent, looking down upon all living beings. Yet there was one key difference.
Every Primarch present could clearly perceive a subtle, intangible gaze projecting down from the statue's face, fixing squarely upon them.
The sensation was akin to being watched directly by their Father.
Unconsciously, everyone sat up straighter, their expressions taking on a solemn gravity.
As Adam spoke, the remaining Primarchs turned their gazes toward the Lion.
Lion was no stranger to this setting.
During the Great Crusade, he had participated in countlessly many war councils just like this.
He stood up and, in extremely concise and succinct terms, rapidly recounted his journey through the Webway.
The preparations prior to entering the Webway; traversing regions abandoned by the Aeldari; the chance encounter with the combined forces of the White Scars and the Terran humans;
And the traitor Primarch, Lorgar Aurelian.
Lion's recount was brief and precise, formatted just like every military report he was accustomed to delivering.
"Lorgar is deep within the Webway. His presence there is by no means accidental—I believe he is conducting a massive engineering project of some kind, an undisclosed conspiracy."
Lion sat back down; his report was complete.
The reactions among the other Primarchs in attendance varied.
Naturally, the one with the most pronounced reaction was obvious.
Guilliman clenched his fists tightly.
For a Primarch renowned for cool composure and rational intellect, this was indeed a rare sight.
Yet anyone familiar with that piece of history would understand his reaction—upon hearing the name of his nemesis raised once more, no Primarch could truly remain indifferent.
The hatred between the Ultramarines and the Word Bearers ranked among the absolute bitterest of all Legion feuds.
The destruction of Monarchia, the Battle of Calth, the Shadow Crusade... the blood debts between them were far too numerous to record.
Even though the Lord Regent sitting here exercised ample restraint under most circumstances, he was still overcome by a bone-chilling hatred.
"Compose yourself," Sanguinius whispered, seated beside Guilliman. He turned his head, his voice gentle yet firm, like a beam of warm light falling onto a frozen lake. "We will find him."
"...I understand."
Guilliman went silent for a moment, let out a heavy sigh, and slowly relaxed his tense shoulders.
He leaned back into his chair once more, the surging fury in his chest suppressed back down by cold reason.
"I am simply... deeply disappointed that I was not present at the time," Guilliman said.
'If you had been there, things would have turned out much worse.'
Adam offered a silent critique in his mind, though his expression betrayed nothing.
While Guilliman had indeed managed to overpower Lorgar in a duel during the Shadow Crusade ten thousand years ago, Lorgar's strength had grown exponentially over the millennia, having successfully mastered the Enuncia language.
Had the two fought now, the outcome would hardly be optimistic.
Still, he kept those thoughts to himself.
Adam simply shifted the topic: "In that case, we can at least confirm one thing: the Chaos Primarchs are indeed plotting a conspiracy deep within the Webway. A conspiracy... capable of posing a genuine, substantial threat to the Imperium of Man."
As he said this, Adam felt a trace of perplexity himself.
How should he put it?
He truly could not imagine what cards the forces of Chaos had left to play.
The winning formula he had designed was already fully laid out; once the day arrived when all C'tan shards were consumed, his ascension to Level 5 Reality Warping would come to pass.
When that happened, he would thoroughly end all darkness in the Warhammer universe and redress every single regret.
If this were an old-school real-time strategy game, it would feel as though a Psychic Dominator had already been erected—except it was the righteous version.
Even right now, the strategic situation was extraordinarily stable.
Under his proactive intervention, the Aeldari had formed a deep alliance with the Imperium, transforming from a shadowy threat into steadfast allies.
The Silent King of the Necrons, intrigued by the conditions Adam presented, had slipped into a prolonged phase of deliberation and preparation, ensuring he would not intervene or cause disruptions anytime soon.
The Great Devourer had indeed managed to invade the Milky Way due to a black swan event, yet facing an opponent operating with essentially unlimited resources, the Tyranid swarms were held firmly at bay behind defensive lines.
Even as certain Hive Fleets began randomly scattering across the galaxy via Warp surges, the Imperium's surplus production capacity remained more than sufficient to neutralize those hazards entirely.
As for the Orks... the Orks were a special case.
They were a species whose strength scaled dynamically with their opposition—getting stronger against strong foes, and weaker against weak ones.
A weak Ork warband might fight to a standstill against T'au forces barely stepping off their homeworld, while strong Orks could build an alien empire on the scale of Ullanor, bringing a Warp god-tier entity like the Emperor to his knees and nearly causing a total disaster.
Therefore, Adam had deliberately dispatched One-Eye—a figure custom-built to counter the Orks—and strictly controlled the scale of deployed military forces, grinding them down through a slow war of attrition.
The Orks fought with immense thrill and zeal, yet they were never pushed to that critical breaking point that would trigger a explosive counter-surge.
Their growth in combat capability had been successfully throttled within an acceptable ceiling.
With so many massive cosmic time-bombs in the galaxy already defused, he was genuinely curious as to what new tricks Chaos could possibly pull off.
"Now then, let us take stock of our traitorous brothers on the side of Chaos," Guilliman said, having fully regained his composure.
He stood up and began conducting a detailed analysis on the sand table projected over the round table.
As the Primarch most adept at handling multi-threaded affairs among the Emperor's sons, Guilliman's mind was capable of surveying the global galactic situation from countless angles simultaneously.
His gaze swept over the flickering starlight upon the table, swiftly summoning several distinctly marked pieces within the projection and arranging them along the edge of the sand table one by one.
First were the four Primarchs who had bowed directly to the Four Gods of Chaos.
"Magnus."
Guilliman slid the first piece forward, and the crest of the Thousand Sons Legion flashed across the projection.
"We need not waste much thought on him. The Crimson Cyclops has repented and turned over a new leaf; he is currently working as hard labor deep within the Astronomican, attempting to redeem the sins committed over the past ten thousand years while utilizing Warp techniques to fulfill our pledge to the Aeldari."
"Next... Fulgrim."
Guilliman's finger paused briefly over the purple piece before knocking it down with decisive swiftness.
"Confirmed dead. His entire existence, including his Warp essence, has been thoroughly erased by Lord Adam. That blood debt has been collected in full."
"Next, Angron—"
Guilliman picked up the crimson piece. His gaze brushed past Sanguinius beside him—who bore a look of deep sorrow—before he set the piece down.
"At present, the only certainty is that he remains hidden deep within the Brass Throne of the Warp. There are no indications that he has returned, or is about to return, to the materium. For now, continuous monitoring will suffice."
"Following him, Mortarion."
As Guilliman set this piece down, an unmistakable note of confusion entered his voice.
"He likewise keeps a low profile. I have only received a few scattered, unverified sighting reports from the Inquisition, lacking concrete evidence.
However, there is one piece of noteworthy information: he appears to have surfaced in the Caliban sector."
"Caliban?"
The moment that keyword was uttered, Lion immediately knit his brows tight.
"What is going on? How could that brother—dripping with pus and stench—end up in my territory?"
His tone conveyed instinctive disgust rather than deep surprise; a Chaos Primarch roaming about was hardly something to be shocked over.
Yet wandering into Caliban? That was indeed worthy of attention.
Guilliman shook his head: "Intelligence suggests he has been lingering in that region continuously, seemingly searching for something, showing complete indifference toward everything else around him. Ferrus once attempted to track his trail in that area to hunt him down, but to no avail."
The Lion's brow furrowed even deeper.
Caliban.
What was Mortarion searching for on Caliban?
What was there on that ruined world worthy of him spending time to retrieve?
Having grown up on, ruled, and ultimately witnessed the destruction of Caliban as its master, Lion naturally knew every detail of his homeworld like the back of his hand.
His thoughts swiftly swept across the secrets buried deep within his birth planet, quickly alighting on something.
"The Three Treasures of Caliban: the Ouroboros, the Webway Shield Engine... and the Heart of Plague?"
The Heart of Plague?
Lion felt a sense of perplexity.
Although subtle conjectures stirred in his mind, those guesses were ultimately far too thin, lacking sufficient substance to hold weight.
The Three Treasures of Caliban—even he himself knew the whereabouts and details of only two. As for the Heart of Plague, his understanding of it was practically a total blank.
The gathered Primarchs briefly exchanged a few thoughts before ultimately having no choice but to shelf the issue for the time being.
Guilliman then proceeded to set down the remaining pieces.
These were the Primarchs who had not bowed to the Four Gods, yet had rebelled nonetheless.
Lorgar Aurelian—recently confirmed to have been sighted by Lion inside the Webway. One of the main topics of this very meeting.
And the "Night Haunter," Konrad Curze.
Guilliman's movement in knocking this piece over was exceptionally crisp and swift.
"He was slain by an assassin sent by the Officio Assassinorum ten thousand years ago. Confirmed deceased."
Lion's frown deepened even further.
He spoke up almost out of pure instinct.
"Hold on. What do you mean... an assassin sent by the Officio Assassinorum assassinated Konrad Curze?"
Was this a joke?
The Primarch most skilled in the art of assassination died at the hands of an assassin?
To Lion, who had gone to sleep early and missed that era of history, this sounded like a complete ghost story.
"Could this news possibly be real?"
"He didn't just fake his death to play mind games with us, did he?"
It was Ferrus Manus who answered Lion's doubt.
The Primarch of the Iron Hands spoke with succinct brevity, true to his usual style.
"It is real. I guarantee it."
He raised his eyes and looked straight at Lion. "During the era of the Legion of the Damned, when I campaigned in the Warp under Father's command, I encountered the soul of Konrad Curze more than once. He has returned to the Throne."
"What?"
"Are you serious..."
Facing this revelation, both Guilliman and Lion wore subtle, complex, and unamused expressions at the same time.
Memories of Imperium Secundus suddenly flooded back into their minds like a rising tide.
During that absurd and dark period, the two of them had suffered no small amount of "special attention" from that unhinged brother of theirs.
Curze's completely illogical prophecies and his maddening assassin tactics had haunted them for a long, long time.
That experience had even generated quite a few famous scenes.
For instance, the absurdly laid-back attitude of the Macragge citizenry—marching in the streets to protest why roads were blocked just because a "Primarch" had infiltrated the city—or Lion's decision to conduct an orbital bombardment of Macragge...
They were all the sort of anecdotes worthy of being inscribed into a 'Warhammer Joke Collection'.
Accepting such a mundane outcome for him was genuinely difficult for them to stomach.
"Alright, let us move past them," Guilliman said, steering the conversation back on track as he organized the remaining pieces in his hand.
He pushed the names with confirmed fates to the side, then pulled out the final piece.
Perturabo, Primarch of the Iron Warriors.
"...No clear sighting reports. The last time the Inquisition tracked his movements was a very long time ago."
At this moment, Adam offered his own judgment.
"From my perspective, if Chaos has any follow-up moves left to play, the leverage must lie with Perturabo."
"No."
To his surprise, the person who spoke up to refute him was Guilliman.
The Lord Regent looked around at everyone present and delivered his conclusion with crisp, unwavering certainty.
"No. I do not believe Perturabo is the key."
His finger shifted toward another piece on the table that was already at the center of everyone's attention.
"Lorgar Aurelian."
Guilliman said in a low, resonant tone, "The largest variable, the most crucial nexus—it must be him."
His gaze turned toward Lion.
"The massive Blackstone ritual structure placed inside the Webway that you mentioned earlier—I find myself deeply concerned by it.
The scale and location of that construct bear the unmistakable hallmarks of meticulous design. That does not look like Perturabo's handiwork."
"Therefore, I believe this is yet another conspiracy orchestrated by Lorgar."
Guilliman paused for a moment, then spoke again, adding a conclusion that bordered on arbitrary.
"As for Perturabo..."
Guilliman's voice echoed through the silent council chamber, carrying a tone of almost arrogant conviction.
"Pay him no mind. He is not a problem."