"It's over. Everything will meet its end."
"This can't be. How did it come to this?"
Khayon stood at the edge of a Cadia fragment.
When the Warp storms that had raged for thousands of years subsided, and the Eye of Terror was wholly transformed, he muttered to himself as if he had lost his sanity.
The Nameless One's ability was terrible.
With only a slight gesture, he had wholly healed this old wound, once the heart of the Eldar Empire — the place torn open by Slaanesh's birth-cry after the Fall.
Such a skill was something ordinary people could not possibly acquire.
He had never heard that new gods had been born in the galaxy.
Even the four Chaos Gods could not have accomplished this so easily.
That the Eye of Terror had returned under the rule of physical law meant the traitors lurking inside had lost their greatest trump card, and that ruin had come.
Abaddon's Black Legion was the most powerful force in the Eye of Terror. It possessed the most warships, the most defected Astartes, and the most relics of dark technology. Even so, Abaddon had not been able to bring every faction to heel.
It had truly taken ten thousand years before the Warmaster of Chaos could barely unify mutually hostile Chaos warbands into a loose alliance.
Before them stood the Imperium of Man, firmly united by the Nameless Ones and the Primarchs.
Chaotic traitors, each acting on his own and plotting against the others, were not a real enemy. They would soon be annihilated, swiftly and decisively.
By that time the whole region of the Eye of Terror would lie under the Imperium of Man.
Every force that tried to resist the Corpse-Emperor would lose its hiding places and its routes of escape, and be smashed, one after another, by the Imperium.
"Take him away." Seeing Khayon's face wholly collapsed under wave after wave of despair, Malcador let a faint expression of pity show.
He had seen many clever humans of Khayon's kind. They convinced themselves they had seen through the truth, and thought themselves closer to it than ordinary people, when in fact it had all been a lie.
When the lie was exposed, they collapsed completely.
Two guards in golden power armour stepped forward, seized Khayon by both arms, and took him away.
After Khayon had been led off, Malcador turned and looked at the nameless man.
Datch stood at the edge of the rubble, gazing at his own masterpiece.
The Eye of Terror is no big deal. For a Player, isn't this something anyone can easily master?
Malcador walked over and asked, humbly, "Nameless lord, should we begin the attack on the Eye of Terror at once?"
Datch nodded, raised his hand, waved it hard, and shouted, "Begin the attack immediately! Rescue this region from Chaos's hands, and put those traitors on trial!"
"Yes, nameless lord." Malcador turned and ordered a general offensive.
That order ran quickly through the communications net, from the Cadia fragment to the bridge of every Imperial warship and onto the commanders' comm-lines.
The Primarchs who received it at once sent fleets into the Eye of Terror and had them carry out a sweep.
When the Imperial fleet entered planetary orbit, many rebel forces were still in a panic, tossed about by the fading of chaotic energy and the vanishing of the Warp storms.
"Let them stand trial." The Imperial commanders, however, gave them no chance, and ordered the attack at once.
Terrible firepower poured out of the void from every direction onto the fortresses and strongholds the traitors had built at such cost.
Then they realised it. The Imperium of Man was attacking the Eye of Terror, and meant to annihilate them.
Shells from gigantic gun-arrays trailed dazzling white contrails as they tore the dark night sky.
Plasma torpedoes kindled several small suns between the rebel fleet and the void-fortresses.
Rays pierced chaotic hulls from prow to stern before those ships had even started their engines.
Fortresses were destroyed from the foundation up by the fierce bombardment.
The ceramite outer walls, under ceaseless concentrated fire, crumbled from the edges, as if ancient pottery were being struck again and again by a heavy hammer.
Everything was destroyed and became utter ruin.
Those Chaos warbands that had occupied the Eye of Terror for thousands of years were no larger than ants before the gigantic host led by several Primarchs. They were smashed with ease, and could not even put up a decent resistance.
The Imperial fleet broke the enemy line and beat the rebels of the Eye of Terror back.
Without Chaos energy and without Warp daemons to lean on, the rebels, for all their effort, were annihilated by the Imperium swiftly and decisively, like a mantis trying to stop a tank.
Their warships exploded in the void and became dazzling fireballs in an instant.
Spiked fortresses fell one after another into the hands of the ground forces, and became mountains of ruin wrapped in black smoke.
Malcador quickly organised the Mechanicum and secured the resources needed to rebuild the conquered planets.
Branch lines of the star-trail network were pushing out through the occupied region at astonishing speed.
Pam's star-trains left bright contrails across the vastness of space.
The star-trails drew themselves, as if alive, linking important galaxies and the key points of the routes into the existing star-trail network.
Forge-adepts of the Mechanicum followed hard behind the sweep fleet and terraformed those planets.
Hundreds of large devices for environmental modification were set down on the ground, and the work was carried out.
The atmospheres of planets that had soaked in chaotic energy for centuries were stripped away layer by layer, replaced with new layers, and turned into pure, uncontaminated air.
Contaminated soil on the surface was dug out deep, covered with purified volcanic rock, sprinkled with holy water, and cleansed completely.
On numerous planets that had once lain under Chaos, the banner of the Imperial aquila was raised again.
The Ecclesiarchy raised magnificent churches and statues on every planet, housed the relics of saints there, and tried to purify what chaotic energy remained.
While the Imperium of Man was winning and smashing the forces of Chaos, Malcador suddenly received word that an envoy of the Craftworld Eldar had arrived.
"Have them brought here." After a little thought, Malcador ordered the guards to bring in the Eldar delegation.
Their leader was the great farseer Eldrad.
Behind him came a group of farseers of considerable standing, representatives of the various craftworlds.
All of them wore elaborate robes. The flowing, graceful runes drawn on those robes gave off a faint warm light under the command room's cold white lamps.
Malcador noticed something of interest.
In the eyes of these Eldar farseers, the arrogance peculiar to the Eldar had vanished. Humility and fawning filled them instead.
Humans were no longer the apes of whom they spoke. They had become the absolute rulers who decided the fate of the whole galaxy.
Neither the Craftworld Eldar, nor the Necrons of the universe, nor even the dark gods could stop the rise of the Imperium of Man.
That humanity would dominate the galaxy was an obvious fate, and nothing would stop it.
The craftworlds that had drifted in the void for thousands of years — the last civilisation of the Eldar — were fragile ants before the overwhelming military power of the Imperium of Man.
Malcador could annihilate them with a single order.
Therefore they dared not take even a slightly arrogant tone, for fear of angering Malcador, the Emperor's chancellor, and bringing a terrible calamity down on their own race.
After a short exchange, the two sides went at once to the main subject.
Eldrad did not speak in a roundabout way. He stated directly that the Eldar wished to recover the Eye of Terror, and to take part in the war to eradicate the forces of Chaos.
Before the Eldar feast birthed Slaanesh out of the Warp, the Eye of Terror had been territory the Eldar Empire ruled.
On each planet, ancient ruins of the Eldar Empire's age lay scattered.
Each piece of wraithbone corrupted by Chaos had once been the culmination of the "song" the Eldar ancestors had uttered out of Warp space.
"All past glory is already past," Malcador answered, with a gentle, calm smile. That smile, however, held a will that could not be mistaken. "The Imperium of Man no longer needs anyone's help."
"Our race has no intention whatsoever of challenging the Imperium of Man's domination in the Eye of Terror," Eldrad said, much faster and more hurriedly than before. "We only wish to take part in this war, and to recover precious relics that belong to our race."
The great farseer stopped, drew a deep breath, and went on. "In return we will share our technology and our knowledge with the Imperium of Man. Our Laughing God will also support the Imperium of Man with all his strength, so that it may win the war against Chaos."
Eldrad's words drew Malcador's attention. "If that is so, let us discuss it."
The two sides talked through a series of questions concerning the Eye of Terror. It went on for several hours of Terran standard time.
Malcador at last agreed to return to Eldrad several of the most important planets.
In return, the Eldar were to permit humans, unconditionally, to learn their knowledge and their skills.
Furthermore, Cegorach, the Laughing God — an ancient god who "can walk freely under Slaanesh's gaze" — would formally become an ally of the Imperium of Man, and make ready for the war against the four Chaos Gods.
...
The many chaotic forces lurking inside the Eye of Terror took a catastrophic blow without precedent.
Fierce bombardment poured down and covered sky and sun.
White-hot shells from the macro-cannon arrays, the pale-blue tail-flames of plasma torpedoes, the golden rays of lances, and the dark-red torrents of volcano-cannon energy intertwined in the void. Together they formed a gigantic net of pure destruction, and blew into ruins the fortresses and strongholds built at such cost.
Ancient structures on the planetary surfaces, already wrecked by Chaos, were torn up from the foundation. Blasphemous runes were reduced to ash by the fierce heat.
Countless warbands were annihilated. Many dark forges vanished and became ruins vomiting black smoke.
When Abaddon learned that the Nameless One was the true culprit behind the Eye of Terror's anomaly, he roared with rage and slammed the strategium of the Vengeful Spirit again and again.
No matter how many strongpoints he tried to smash, however, and no matter how many comm-cables he cut, he could change nothing. He was merely a lump of incompetence.
Realising that everything was lost, Vashtorr was badly discouraged.
The original plan had failed. The new plan had been obstructed as well. The dream of becoming a god was wholly hopeless.
The Lord of Absurdity had, by some means unknown, calmed the Warp storms and the chaotic energy of the Eye of Terror.
If they remain at Abaddon's side, they will probably be destroyed by the Lord of Absurdity, or else enslaved.
With that in mind, Vashtorr fled back to his own soul-domain during the night.
When Abaddon learned that Vashtorr had abandoned him, he grew still angrier.
His roar carried from the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit all the way to the engine room.
Along the way, every warrior of the Black Legion heard the Dark Warmaster curse, again and again and in Cthonia's vulgarest slang, the demi-god of the forge who had betrayed the alliance.
Vashtorr's betrayal set off an extremely serious chain reaction.
Once they confirmed that the demi-god of the forge had abandoned the Warmaster of Chaos, the warlords Abaddon had held together only by interest and by fear fled overnight at the head of their fleets.
In the end, it was plain to every eye that Warmaster Abaddon of Chaos had perished.
The gods of another dimension were being mercilessly suppressed by the Lord of Absurdity.
How could Abaddon, who was not even a Primarch, overturn the war situation?
Defeat was unavoidable. All that remained was waiting for death.
Abaddon was enraged and denounced the traitors as shameless cowards.
Before he could strike back at those traitors, however, the Imperium of Man struck first.
Guilliman, Dorn, and several other Primarchs sealed every way in and out of the Eye of Terror, and laid a space-time blockade across the whole region, so that the rebels could not flee.
Traitors who tried to run elsewhere were stopped by fleets of the Imperium of Man and given a thorough bombardment.
Macro-cannons, plasma torpedoes, lances, volcano cannons — every weapon to hand was loosed in unison on the fleeing rebel fleets. Those fleets became endless wreckage adrift in the void.
When Abaddon heard the news, he stood before the observation window on the bridge of HMS Vengeance and burst out laughing.
His smile vanished at once. He was being targeted by the Imperium of Man.
The bloody strife of thirteen Black Crusades was still remembered across the whole Imperium of Man, and would never be forgotten.
Capturing Abaddon, therefore, and sending him to Terra to atone for his sins, had become an obsession for every Imperial soldier.
Abaddon, with the subordinates still loyal to him, tried to break the encirclement aboard the Vengeful Spirit.
His enemies, however, were none other than multiple Primarchs.
Whatever Abaddon did, the Primarchs saw through it.
Guilliman and the Primarchs swiftly intercepted the Vengeful Spirit and boarded.
With multiple Primarchs opposing him, the resistance of Abaddon and his adherents became meaningless.
After fierce combat, every one of Abaddon's subordinates was dead.
He himself was felled by a single blow from Guilliman, and no matter how he tried, he could not stand.
Abaddon was not executed on the spot. He was locked in a cage, loaded onto a large transport, and sent to Terra.
He would be judged before the watching eyes of the whole Imperium of Man, so as to comfort the souls of the countless heroes who had fallen on the battlefield.
"Perturabo, I will put you in a kennel and take you back to Terra."
The instant Dorn entered the Eye of Terror's range, he ordered a search for word of the Iron Warriors' Primarch, Perturabo.
After Abaddon's defeat, one of Abaddon's Chaos sorcerers, to avoid torture, revealed everything he knew, including what he knew of Perturabo.
There, Dorn resolved to fulfil the promise made ten thousand years ago.
He would put Perturabo in a cage and send him to Terra to stand trial together with Abaddon.