Warhammer World
"He's changed..."
Corax's voice was dry, like gravel rubbing against his vocal cords.
"That isn't Horus."
"Or rather, that isn't just Horus."
He looked at Guilliman and Dorn beside him, pointing at the Warmaster on the screen who was laughing wildly at a star map, letting his subordinates kill each other over a few bottles of elixir.
"The old Horus..."
Corax recalled.
"He was indeed cunning. He liked to use allied forces, liked to have us bite the hard bones, and then reap the fruits of victory himself."
"That was his tactical style. Cold, but at least... it was for the sake of victory."
"But now?"
Corax shook his head, a sense of absurdity from a shattered worldview in his tone.
"He isn't commanding an army. He's presiding over a suicidal carnival."
"Look at what he's doing! Throwing an uncontrollable nuclear weapon like Angron into his own positions?"
"Letting the Emperor's Children... hold a concert on the battlefield? Letting the Death Guard conduct biochemical experiments in the rear?"
"He used to use us to preserve the strength of the Luna Wolves."
"But now, he is pointlessly consuming his own strength."
"He's thrown away even the most basic 'stop-loss' logic of a Commander."
Corax took a deep breath. This change in behavioral patterns terrified him more than simple betrayal.
Because betrayal might still be driven by interest, but this Chaos... is pure madness.
"This shows..."
Corax whispered.
"That so-called 'Chaos' doesn't just grant power. It replaces the soul. Siding with them means your brains are turned to mush."
Then, a deep sense of lingering fear welled up in his heart.
Corax looked at the Raven Guard on the screen, who were nearly wiped out.
If he hadn't been naturally cautious, if he hadn't questioned Horus's deployment...
"If I had taken all the companies to Istvaan V back then..."
The Primarch, skilled in stealth and guerrilla warfare, felt a chill run down his spine.
"If I hadn't kept a backup plan, the Nineteenth Legion would truly be extinct."
"In a battlefield full of lunatics, sanity... has actually become the greatest disadvantage."
If the actions of the other traitors were "madness," then the actions of the Alpha Legion were a pure "enigma."
Inside the hall, almost everyone's eyes drifted intentionally or unintentionally toward that corner—the place that should have belonged to Alpharius.
On the screen, that group of warriors in cyan scale-armor was performing a mind-boggling operation:
They were precisely and efficiently slaughtering the Loyalist Astartes trying to break out, while simultaneously going to great lengths to cover the evacuation of mortal crew members, even giving captured rebel warships to the loyalist faction to escape.
Shouting "For the Emperor" while doing backstabbing work, only for the result to be pulling their punches?
"Lord Malcador."
Dorn turned around.
"Is this the... special ops Legion you've been secretly supporting?"
"I remember Alpharius was your 'special asset'. Are they suppressing a rebellion, rebelling themselves, or... performing some kind of performance art?"
Malcador's hand tightened on his staff.
The Imperial Regent, the most inscrutable wise man in the galaxy, watched the Alpha Legion's flip-flopping operations on the screen, and the corners of his eyes were twitching wildly.
"I... find it hard to judge as well."
Malcador sighed, feeling like his hairline was going to recede even further.
"Alpharius's logical thinking has always been a black box. But this logic loop of 'betraying the Emperor for the Emperor's sake'... is a bit too advanced."
"They're like a pack of Huskies that have snuck into a wolf pack."
The Khan suddenly interjected, the Master of the White Scars giving a pithy evaluation.
"They're trying hard to pretend they're bad, but their tails wag very honestly. It's just that with this kind of wagging... Horus actually didn't notice?"
"Of course Horus can't see it."
Lion sneered.
"Because Horus's mind is now only filled with how to become the so-called 'Master of Mankind'; he has lost his insight into details."
"He's recruited a bunch of liars, lunatics, and perverts, and he still expects them to follow orders like the old Crusade?"
"It's simply a joke."
In the seats of the traitor Primarchs within the Throne Room, the atmosphere reached a peak of awkwardness.
Fulgrim was still there staring blankly at his fingernails, trying to escape reality.
Angron was muttering curses that only he could understand.
Mortarion remained huddled in his hood like an autistic patient.
Only Perturabo, the Master of the Iron Warriors, actually straightened his back at this moment.
He looked at his future self on the screen—calm, efficient, and cruel, single-handedly carrying the fire support and command responsibilities of the entire Istvaan V campaign, even having to clean up the messes of the other three Legions.
A strange sense of pride and an even stronger resentment welled up in his heart simultaneously.
"Is this your so-called 'Great Plan'?"
Perturabo looked coldly at Horus, his voice full of mockery.
"Without me, without my Iron Warriors, you bunch of trash would have been pushed back long ago by Ferrus and his men."
"Fulgrim is playing with his sword, Angron is going mad, Mortarion is sleepwalking, and Alpharius is being a double agent."
Perturabo pointed at the screen.
"I'm the only one working! I'm the only one fighting!"
"Horus, you actually want me to join an alliance full of idiots like this?"
"And I actually did join you bunch of lunatics."
Horus opened his mouth to retort, but found himself speechless.
Because the facts on the screen were exactly that.
Without Perturabo's precision-instrument-like command and fire coverage, this so-called "Chaos army" would likely have staged a farce called "being counter-killed" on Istvaan V.
[This is not just a tragedy.]
[This is a farce.]
[My sons... when you abandoned reason and embraced that Warp scum, you even lost the qualification to be warriors. You became clowns.]
[And the most tragic part is that for these clowns... humanity paid the price of its entire future.]
Marvel World
Tony Stark slumped on the sofa, holding a glass of blueberry juice, his face written with disdain.
"Friday, analyze the tactical logic of that Legion called the 'Emperor's Children.'"
"Sir, analysis is impossible."
Friday's voice rang out.
"Apart from 'making noise' and 'random killing,' their behavior does not fit any known military tactical model."
"From the perspective of energy consumption and attrition rates, they are fighting with negative efficiency."
"See?"
Tony pointed at the Noise Marine on the screen who was firing at his own people while holding a Blast-guitar.
"This is why I don't do biological modification. If the brain is broken, no matter how good the equipment is, it's just scrap metal."
"And that bald Warmaster is quite a talent too."
Tony quipped.
"If in the Avengers, Hulk wanted to kill our own, Thor was dancing, and Hawkeye was giving directions to the enemy..."
"I would blow up Avengers Tower on the spot and retire."
"Can this team even be led? Even Thanos would shake his head if he came here."
Captain America's brow was furrowed; he was focused on another point.
"That man named Perturabo."
Steve pointed at the Iron Warriors Primarch on the screen who was calmly commanding fire coverage and quickly building defensive works after the battle.
"Though I'm very reluctant to admit it... among that group of monsters and demons, he's actually the only one fighting seriously."
"This is very ironic."
Black Widow added.
"A butcher who personally slaughtered his own homeworld and has the most twisted personality is instead the only 'normal person' among the rebels."
"This shows that the bottom line of this rebel army has already sunk below the Earth's core."
DC World
The Joker looked at the crazed Emperor's Children and World Eaters on the screen and actually let out a sigh of boredom.
"Boring. So boring."
The Joker toyed with the playing cards in his hand.
"This kind of Chaos is too low-level."
"Purely bestial behavior, no sense of art. That guy named Fulgrim claims to pursue perfection? Ha!"
"He's like a cheap prostitute who just learned how to do makeup, only knowing how to pile colors on her face."
"True Chaos should be like gravity."
"These people... are just purely brain-dead."
Batman, meanwhile, was rapidly recording data at the Batcomputer, his face darker than usual.
"The transmissibility of this 'Chaos' virus is too strong."
Bruce analyzed.
"It doesn't need logic or interest; it only needs to hook into the biological instincts of desire. If this virus broke out in Gotham..."
He glanced at Angron on the screen, who was being pummeled because he wanted to tip off the enemy, and the corner of his mouth actually curled up in an imperceptible arc.
"However, their internal contradictions are also fatal."
"Even without an enemy, these four Legions could fight among themselves."
Land of Light
Ultraman Ace, the warrior who had fought countless interdimensional Terrible-Monsters, was now staring fixedly at the Emperor's Children in their purple Power Armor, who once symbolized "perfection."
Watching their twisted faces at this moment, watching them use sonic weapons to shatter their brothers' internal organs and find joy in it, watching the eerie smile on Fulgrim's once-divine face...
"So ugly..."
Ace's voice carried suppressed anger and disbelief.
"They were once the most glorious warriors in that Universe, 'Ultramen' who protected the weak just like us."
"But now look at them... they are more nauseating than the Terrible-Monsters created by Alien Yapool."
"Terrible-Monsters are just weapons without souls. But these people..."
Ace clenched his fist.
"They actively abandoned their souls."
"They turned glory into a tool to satisfy private desires. That ugly state of indulging in sensory stimulation is the greatest profanation of the title 'warrior'."
Ultraman Seven stood with arms crossed, his red body trembling slightly.
His eyes, which could see through delusions, saw something deeper than the images.
"It's not just physical mutation, Ace."
Seven said sorrowfully.
"It's the rot of the heart. That man named Horus, and that Fulgrim."
"They once possessed the most dazzling light, but precisely because the light was so bright, the shadows they cast when they fell are also the deepest."
"They betrayed not just their oaths, but the very meaning of their existence."
The original Ultraman added, his voice low,
"They turned the 'bond' between brothers—the thing we value more than life in countless life-and-death battles—into a sharp blade aimed at a brother's heart."
Mebius kept staring at a corner of the screen.
There, Vulkan was covering the evacuation of his sons in the aftermath of a nuclear blast.
There, Corax was trying to reorganize the defensive line amidst the chaotic army.
There, ordinary Astartes warriors, when surrounded by traitors numbering several times their own, still shouted "For the Emperor" as they launched a counter-charge.
"No, brothers. It's not over yet."
Mebius pointed at those figures on the black sand plains who refused to retreat even in death, his voice excited and firm.
"Look! Even in such despair, even when betrayed by those they trusted most, they still haven't given up!"
"That warrior named Vulkan, he is weeping, but his hammer has not stopped. He is protecting his children."
"And those ordinary warriors... they know they will die, they know it's a trap, but the light in their hearts has not gone out!"
Ultraman Taro was deeply moved as he watched those loyalist faction warriors who charged at the rebels like moths to a flame.
"This is the hymn of humanity. Even in that dark Universe, there are still people willing to burn themselves for their beliefs."
"They are true heroes."
Ultraman Hikari said softly.
"In the Land of Light, being a hero is easy because we have the light."
"But there... upholding justice requires paying a price more tragic than life. They deserve our highest respect."
Finally, everyone's gaze focused on the majestic elder in the red cape at the center of the hall.
Father of Ultra remained silent.
His eyes, which had experienced tens of thousands of years, reflected the soaring flames of Istvaan V.
He seemed to see the Belial of another parallel Universe, seeing the ultimate tragedy after power went out of control.
He slowly raised his hand as if wanting to touch that distant and desperate World, but then lowered it helplessly.
"This is a warning."
"The humans of that Universe, they possess power rivaling the gods and the ambition to conquer the galaxy."
"But they ignored the most important thing—the power of the heart."
He looked at the young Mebius, then at the mature Zoffy, and finally cast his gaze into the void.
"We always arrive in times of crisis to save those weak civilizations. But in that Warhammer Universe..."
Father of Ultra shook his head, his tone carrying a sense of helplessness and compassion befitting an elder.
"This is a tragedy with no Ultraman to save it."
"No radiance from the M78 Nebula will pierce the darkness there. No Plasma Spark can purify those fallen souls."
"This is a bitter fruit that humanity must swallow on its own."
"They must face the demons growing from the depths of their own hearts themselves."
"They must use their own blood, their own flesh, and their own souls to fill this abyss torn open by betrayal."
A long silence fell over the hall.
This was a sense of powerlessness heavier than defeat.
The warriors of the Land of Light were accustomed to saving, but facing a race and Universe that had collapsed at its roots and was self-destructing, they realized that external power cannot save a heart that has already rotted from within.
"But as long as there are still people fighting like Vulkan and Corax..."
Father of Ultra said finally, his gaze becoming deep.
"Hope still remains. It's just that this road... is too bitter, too long."
"May the light... even if it's just a faint light in their hearts, guide them."