Those words shattered the silence within the command post.
Every Astartes present first cast their gaze toward Ahzek Ahriman, then turned their heads to look at their genetic father, Magnus.
As what was, in a sense, the most unique Legion among the Astartes, the Thousand Sons had suffered a psychic catastrophe during the Horus Heresy. The Rubric of Ahriman had instantly turned the flesh of the vast majority of its members to ash, trapping their souls eternally within their armor and reducing them to Rubric Marines who could only act on command.
The rare few survivors, however, found a blessing in disguise. They gained psychic talents far exceeding anything they had possessed before, becoming the undisputed leaders of their silent brothers.
Every single figure standing inside this command post right now was one of the most powerful Sorcerers within the Thousand Sons Warband.
And among them, the words spoken by Ahriman—the architect of the Rubric and the First Captain of the Thousand Sons—naturally carried immense weight.
Magnus swept his gaze over these genetic sons, who had been estranged from him since ten thousand years ago, and lifted his head high.
"Rest assured, I naturally have my plan."
Change, after all, was the domain of Tzeentch.
And even more than Chaos, he hated the Emperor who had abandoned him, and the Imperium that had fed him nothing but lies.
As the favored chosen of the God of Change, Magnus' mastery over variables far exceeded what ordinary men could conceive. He lowered his single eye and, in a brief silence, rapidly formulated an indirect strategy to achieve his goal.
"I intend to begin organizing the corrupted mortal armies we can find, using them as offensive anchors to launch sudden assaults on the Imperium's critical blackstone facilities."
Magnus waved an arm, and his psychic power constructed a three-dimensional topographic map of glowing lines in the air.
"Since the Imperium can survive and perform maintenance within the Pariah Nexus, using mortal cultists as a medium will allow us to bypass the risk of being banished back into the Warp. There is no need for us to set foot personally in that damned silent zone."
Everyone stared at him, speechless.
Are you insane, or are we?
Please, look up and see the scale of the military force outside.
On a battlefield of this density, even an Astartes is nothing more than cannon fodder with a survival rate measured in seconds.
And you expect a pack of mortals to punch through this defensive line?
How is this any different from telling them, "Go assassinate the Damned"?
Ahriman hesitated for a moment before speaking up, offering a tactful counsel.
"Just moments ago, the Changeling reported to us—the Cadians have gone completely feral. The Imperial commander has constructed layer upon layer of interlocking containment and interception defenses, sealing this entire sector airtight and squeezing our defensive line."
"Father, we should resolve this problem first."
Magnus waved his hand confidently, his crimson cloak billowing behind him.
"I understand your concerns. But rest assured, I am no fool. I am Magnus."
There was a hint of near-arrogance in his certain tone.
"I maintain constant contact with Fulgrim. At this very moment, the four Gods of the Empyrean have fully united. We can develop a serum in an extremely short timeframe—similar to the combat drugs used by the Eversor Assassins of the False Emperor's dogs. We will use this serum to completely burn away the lives of those mortals, forcing out enough explosive momentum to puncture their line in a short burst."
"What a pity. If those wretched Pariah Nexuses weren't shielding all Warp influence, we wouldn't even need this step. I could personally use Chaos sorcery to catalyze them into self-detonating meat bombs."
Would this really work?
"Heh."
Someone among the gathered sorcerers let out a low, bitter laugh.
But thinking it over, it seemed this was indeed the only viable method left on the table.
No matter how much they racked their brains, the fact remained set in stone that the forces of Chaos could not step into the Pariah Nexus. Unless the Four Gods of Chaos manifested in the mortal realm themselves, this issue simply could not be solved by any psychic means.
Right then, everyone raised their heads in unison.
Their acute senses as psykers allowed them to detect an anomaly in the heavens at the exact same moment.
A black speck was rapidly expanding across the sky of Cadia.
At first, it was merely an ink blotch the size of a pinprick, but in the blink of an eye, the silhouette of that black speck began to balloon at a suffocating speed. It was too massive—so massive that it dragged a black eclipse across the sky, completely obscuring Cadia's pale sun and casting a vast shadow spanning thousands of kilometers across the surface.
Everyone in the command post saw the true face of that entity clearly.
It was a Phalanx.
In the past, this noun never required a plural or indefinite article. After all, it was common knowledge that there was only one Phalanx in the entire galaxy—the fortress-monastery of the Imperial Fists, the Imperium's most legendary mobile bastion.
However, the current era was completely different.
Thanks to that strange, newly emerged entity among humanity, military assets in quantities unimaginable even during the Great Crusade had now openly reappeared in the world.
Thus, the Phalanx's status changing from "the only one" to "one of many" didn't seem like something worth making a fuss about anymore.
"It seems my iron-brained brother still hasn't learned his lesson."
Seeing this scene, Magnus did not show the slightest panic. Instead, he let out a calm laugh, one laced with a hint of mockery.
"Did he learn absolutely nothing from Isstvan?"
After all, Cadia did not possess a uniquely blessed Warp rift environment like Pandorax. Even Magnus himself could not perform a ritual like a certain Chaos Warmaster to convert the entire planetary surface into a void rift that would detonate at the touch of an orbital bombardment.
Therefore, according to the iron rules written in the Imperial tactica—the moment the defenders lose orbital supremacy, everything on the ground becomes a sitting duck for orbital bombardment.
Even so, Magnus remained completely confident.
Then, the Phalanx opened fire.
No one could describe the sound and light of that split second.
The weapon arrays at the base of the Phalanx first lit up with a row of faint points of light, like stars igniting in the distant sky.
Immediately after, those points of light swelled in an instant into pillars of judgment that pierced the heavens and earth. These were dozens of laser beams thicker than palaces, carrying terrifying energy capable of tearing a continental shelf from the mantle, pouring down toward the Chaos line at the speed of light.
The atmosphere was ripped open.
Ionized, purple-white flames erupted at the tears, and a scalding shockwave pushed the high-altitude clouds in all directions, forming a circular vacuum zone extending for hundreds of kilometers.
Before the beams even reached the surface, the ground began to boil—rock liquefied, air combusted, and metal armor turned red-hot in the radiant heat.
Yet, at that exact moment, practiced incantations echoed across the entire position.
It was the top psychic sorcerers of the Thousand Sons Legion chanting in unison. Their voices merged into an inhuman harmony, weaving a colossal net of pure energy high in the sky.
Magnus raised his hand, calm and confident.
A thick beam of psychic energy surged from his palm. Like a spark catching dry wood, it instantly ignited that massive net into a giant curtain spanning the horizon.
Layers of blue light fell one after another, like closing heavenly gates, firmly covering the entire Chaos line.
The torrent of the orbital bombardment slammed into that curtain of light.
And then, they were completely absorbed.
The world-ending energy seemed to be cast into a bottomless well. After kicking up a few ripples on the surface of the psychic curtain, it vanished without a trace.
This scene clearly came as no surprise to any Thousand Sons sorcerer present.
As early as the Horus Heresy ten thousand years ago, when the Space Wolves' fleet launched an orbital bombardment on Prospero, the psykers of the Thousand Sons had already demonstrated the terrifying ability to collectively cast shields and withstand orbital strikes.
And back then, Magnus hadn't even participated—he had been hiding alone in the depths of his ruined library, shut away in remorse and grief.
Now, with a Daemon Primarch personally casting the spell, blocking an attack from a Phalanx that was wary of damaging Cadia's vital facilities and absolutely dared not fire at full capacity was, naturally, well within his capabilities.
"How can mere steel ever triumph over my honed psychic power?" Magnus said softly, a trace of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He flipped his palm, and psychic light began to reconverge within it, preparing to give the giant fortress floating in orbit a proper counterattack—at the very least, to drive it out of this sector's firing solution.
Yet, in that very fraction of a second, an alarm suddenly exploded within Magnus' mind.
What is happening?
Magnus had always trusted his instincts implicitly. Almost simultaneously, he channeled his psychic power once more. Blinding light erupted from his single eye as glimpse after glimpse of the future unfolded in the void—he saw tens of thousands of timelines twisting and tangling within the Warp, and countless possibilities spreading out like branches.
But he saw nothing.
Magnus' brow furrowed.