Within the Immaterium.
The turbulent currents of energy rushed past without pause, just as they had done for billions of years.
Countless unnamable colors twisted and rolled in every corner of the warp, forming bizarre and grotesque spectacles capable of driving any mortal mad.
The emotions of the entire galaxy had coalesced into a physical torrent, roaring and washing over everything in the boundless depths of Chaos.
Yet amidst this endless turbulence, Adam stood quietly. Then, he gently waved his hand.
In front of him, the Slaanesh Daemon Primarch—once a terrifying entity that made the entire galaxy tremble—stood completely lifeless. His eyes stared blankly, his purple pupils reflecting absolutely nothing.
His four arms hung limply. Those twisted, stinging swords slipped from his slack fingers, falling into the endless depths of the Warp.
Then, Fulgrim's entire body dissolved into a streak of flowing light.
Drawing an elegant arc through the chaotic space, it was drawn straight into Adam's palm.
Having done all this, Adam smiled faintly.
He gently raised his right hand, extended his index finger, and pressed it against his temple.
In that instant, his consciousness manifested into reality.
It traversed inexpressible distances, pierced through the veil separating the real universe from the Warp, crossed the barriers of stars and void, and arrived precisely at its destination.
At this very moment, on the bridge of the Fist of Iron.
Ferrus Manus stood before the command console.
His eyes were fixed on the holographic projection in front of him—where the formation of the Chaos fleet was gradually collapsing.
Then, Ferrus heard that voice.
"How do you feel?"
The voice materialized out of thin air within his mind, calm and clear, as if projected directly into his consciousness from an extremely close distance.
Ferrus showed no surprise.
He merely shook his head impassively and spoke in a deep, low voice, "Not bad. Far calmer than I had anticipated."
His gaze remained fixed on the holographic projection, watching the enemy vessels disintegrate one after another under the overwhelming firepower of the Phalanx.
Ferrus paused for a brief moment before asking, "What about Fulgrim? How is he?"
Deep within the Warp, Adam stood silently.
With his index finger still resting on his temple, he gazed toward a distant coordinate.
"His end has come."
Adam's voice was as calm as still water. "He has been entirely absorbed by my reality anchor strength. Thus, he will never appear before you again—never."
A brief silence followed this declaration.
Then, Ferrus's voice came through.
"That is for the best."
His words were brief and powerful.
On the bridge, Ferrus finally averted his gaze from the holographic projection.
He said, "This is also his path of redemption."
Ferrus's voice was low and unwavering, each word ringing with the solid finality of iron. "The atrocities committed by Fulgrim have exerted a massive impact on the destiny of mankind. Even as his former dearest friend, I could never tolerate it. It is entirely over between us." He paused, then added, "So, you do not need to concern yourself with my thoughts."
"Is that so?"
A faint, almost imperceptible trace of amusement colored Adam's voice. "I thought you would feel a bit more melancholy. After all, he was once your truest friend, and now your mortal enemy."
"Impossible."
Ferrus's reply was cold and absolute.
His voice reached Adam's mind without a shred of hesitation or wavering.
"I have grown. I am no longer the commander who, on Isstvan V, allowed himself to become so irrational because of a brother's betrayal. I will see this to a complete end."
After a moment's silence, Ferrus continued, "The past me is dead."
Hearing this, Adam let out a soft chuckle.
"Is that a pun?"
His tone carried a hint of teasing, and he casually remarked, "Of course, if you want to make up for all those regrets, I actually have a way. You've met that xenos before, right? The Necron Overlord, Trazyn? His museum holds a clone of Fulgrim. Aside from his appearance, he even possesses the exact same memories as the original."
Adam paused for a moment. "I could use reality bending to reprocess him, giving that Fulgrim a brand-new Warp essence. In a sense, he would be a new Primarch. Perhaps you two could have a fresh start."
"No need."
Ferrus answered almost instantly, without a second thought.
"Let it all remain in the past."
But then, he paused.
He frowned, a trace of confusion entering his voice. "Wait, what do you mean by clone?"
"Oh? You didn't know?"
Surprise leaked into Adam's voice. "It was a biochemical experiment conducted by Fabius Bile regarding the cloning of Primarchs. Fulgrim even used that technology to create numerous clones of you, executing you more than once. I recall intelligence suggesting that during this process, your soul actually descended into those clones—is that true?"
"I have no recollection of such a thing."
Ferrus let out a cold snort, his voice dripping with undisguised disgust. "How utterly repulsive."
"Well, looks like Fulgrim was just hallucinating from too many drugs."
Adam casually brushed the topic aside.
On the bridge of the Fist of Iron, Ferrus turned around.
His gaze fell back onto the holographic projection. This time, however, Ferrus paid no attention to the routing enemy ships. Instead, he spoke with swift and decisive authority.
"So, is there any concrete intelligence regarding the movements of the four Chaos Gods?"
Finally, he asked the question he truly cared about.
After all, a Daemon Primarch had been dealt with inside the Warp, yet the four Chaos Gods—especially Slaanesh—had shown absolutely no reaction.
This was highly unusual.
Deep in the Warp, Adam's brow began to furrow as he stroked his chin upon hearing the question.
"Yes."
Adam's voice carried clear bafflement. "Their assault against the joint forces of the Emperor and myself inside the Warp has ceased. I am quite surprised by this as well—it is as if they have completely abandoned the effort."
His gaze pierced through the layers of the Warp's veil, looking toward an even more distant horizon.
"Furthermore, the forces I dispatched to invade their domains are currently facing massive resistance and encirclement. Various legendary Greater Daemons have manifested before them. Consequently, my forces have been forced to withdraw from the engagement."
At this point, Adam's voice grew increasingly grave. "All these signs indicate that the attention of the four Chaos Gods has shifted. They have already begun plotting their next scheme. This is precisely what mystifies me."
Ferrus fell silent.
He, too, was utterly perplexed.
Could it be that Chaos was simply throwing in the towel?
But that was impossible.
The outcome of Cadia was something the four Gods could absolutely never accept.
At this very moment, on the edge of the Eye of Terror, deep beneath Cadia, the machinery meticulously maintained by the Adeptus Mechanicus was operating at maximum capacity.
Colossal amounts of energy surged from the massive installations. The output was so vast that it could easily power an entire sub-sector, exceeding the wildest imaginations of almost any previous era in Imperial history.
And all of this energy was being channeled into a single device.
The Eye of Terror was gradually being mended.
That massive rift spanning realspace and the Warp, a cosmic-scale scar that had brought endless calamity to humanity for ten thousand years, was now healing at a slow but steady pace.
It resembled a massive wound starting to scab over and close.
Once it was completely sealed, the ability of the four Gods to interfere with realspace would plummet to the lowest point in the Imperium's history.
Humanity would then usher in an exceptionally stable period of development.
The Warp would become as calm as a placid lake. The superb Warp travel conditions of the Great Crusade era would return to the galaxy.
Adam's thoughts drifted further.
With the new technological creations and increased productivity brought by his reality-bending abilities—coupled with the administrative prowess returned to the Imperium by the Primarchs, the gradually unified Adeptus Mechanicus, the restructured military and administrative divisions, Sanguinius's religious reforms, Ferrus's technological research reforms, and Guilliman's administrative reforms—the Imperium would grow unbelievably strong in the coming era of recovery.
Meanwhile, Adam could comfortably search the universe—and perhaps even beyond—to collect artifacts and shards of authority, thereby increasing his own reality anchor strength.
Once he smoothly reached the level of a Category 5 reality bender, the end of the four Gods would be a certainty.
Everything would finally draw to a close.
Yet Adam's frown only deepened.
Even though his enemies' days were clearly numbered, the realization that he could absolutely not let his guard down filled him with a trace of unease.
Even if they didn't understand the finer details of his reality anchor progression, the Chaos Gods would never sit idly by and watch all of this unfold.
So, what exactly were they planning?
Adam pondered.
His consciousness expanded through the Warp, brushing against the turbulent torrents of emotion, attempting to extract some clue from the very essence of Chaos.
But the chaotic flood of information only roared mindlessly, offering no decipherable patterns.
In the end, he temporarily put the matter aside.
"Whatever. I can't figure it out now, let's just wait and see."
Saying this, Adam raised his head.
His gaze effortlessly bypassed the veil between the Warp and realspace, casting out toward the void where a fierce battle was still raging.
At this very moment, in realspace.
The Chaos fleet was in utter disarray.
Having lost the leadership of their Daemon Primarch, the Chaos warships that had once terrorized countless Imperial worlds were now struggling in the void like a swarm of headless flies.
Their formations had completely broken down, and coordination between vessels was nonexistent. Every Chaos captain reacted purely on instinct—and instinct told them that death was closing in.
Meanwhile, the Imperial fleets were closing the net.
The Phalanx and its escorts resembled the gaping maw of a colossal beast, slowly shutting tight.
Countless star fortresses formed an inescapable net of encirclement, trapping the Chaos fleet from all directions.
The net was so dense that wherever one looked, the void was filled with those mountain-sized hulls.
Then, the bombardment commenced.
A torrent of fire swept across the void like sheets of rain.
No.
The word "rain" was entirely inadequate.
It was an all-consuming deluge of fire.
Every second, thousands of macro-cannon shells and energy beams poured from the batteries of the Phalanx.
The light of the lance batteries turned the dark void into day, while Nova Cannon shells left blinding trails in the vacuum. The sheer volume of fire was so immense that it wove an inescapable web of destruction across the void.
Desperately, the cornered Chaos vessels thrashed about, but to no avail.
Shields flared and overloaded, and enemy return fire kicked up nothing more than minor ripples on the void shields of the Phalanx. The explosions of plasma drives illuminated the surrounding space, sounding like final, dying wails.
The Chaos fleet suffered casualties with every passing second.
And the Phalanx felt inexhaustible!
With every volley, Chaos warships dissolved into burning wreckage in the void; with every tightening of the net, their maneuvering space was further compressed.
The very Chaos vessels that had brought ten thousand years of torment to the Imperium were now paying the price for their sins.
One by one, they fell.
At the core of the Chaos fleet, the massive Gloriana-class vessels were still struggling to hold out.
But even they were being forced back step by step under this overwhelming onslaught.
Finally, under the watch of everyone present, the void shields of the most prominent vessel in the Chaos fleet—the flagship of the Emperor's Children, the Pride of the Emperor—overloaded.
Its shields flickered, then shattered like glass.
In the next instant, countless lances and macro-shells struck its hull with pinpoint accuracy. Armor plating was ripped away, exposing the internal superstructure to the vacuum, and plumes of fire erupted from the breaches.
Then, it detonated.
The light of the explosion was so bright that even in a battle of this scale, its demise drew the attention of everyone who witnessed it.
Of course, this did not include Adam.
The destruction of the Pride of the Emperor was not what caught his eye.
Perhaps the fall of this Chaos flagship carried immense symbolic weight and honor for certain Imperials—especially the Astartes of the Iron Hands lineage—but to Adam, once he had eliminated Fulgrim, the destruction of this vessel was already a foregone conclusion.
He was far more interested in something else.
Adam raised his gaze.
At this moment, against the pitch-black backdrop of space, that scar spanning astronomical units—the Eye of Terror—was shrinking at a visible rate.
For this phenomenon to be visible to the naked eye on a cosmic scale meant it was closing across distances too vast for a human to comprehend in a lifetime.
It was shrinking. It was vanishing.
Adam withdrew his gaze.
Everything would eventually come to an end.