Under Curze's combined assault of fists and words, Magnus spilled everything he had to say.
The more the two of them listened, the quieter they became.
The more they listened, the tighter their fists clenched.
And at the same time, they could not help but wonder whether this idiot was lying on purpose—stalling for time with some absurd story.
But that did not make sense either.
Did he still have some hidden trump card left? Would he really dare waste time like this?
Every second spent here meant countless Thousand Sons dying outside on the battlefield.
If you did not feel bad about that, I did!
"Well? Finished?" Curze asked, the corner of her mouth twitching after Magnus had gone several seconds without opening it again.
"Mm. Finished!" Magnus nodded.
Bang.
Curze immediately smashed her forehead into his skull, then followed it up with a rapid string of slaps, then a kick, then an elbow.
"You think I'm some three-year-old child you can fool?!" Curze roared, unloading another combo that sent Magnus coughing up blood all over again. The wounds he had only just begun to recover were now reset from scratch.
"Urgh... cough, cough..."Magnus, bruised and swollen, answered pitifully, "I... I didn't... Everything I said was true..."
If he had been capable of winning, Magnus would have fought Curze to the death right then and there.
I already explained everything! Why are you still hitting me?!
Am I not a person?!
Even tormenting a prisoner had to have limits!
"Recruit! Give him your review!" Curze turned toward Bruce, who was still utterly dumbstruck.
"Huh...? Me?" Bruce blinked, swallowed, and then said helplessly, "There's so much here, and there are so many things I want to complain about, I don't even know where to start."
So according to Magnus, while wandering the Warp, he met some so-called guardian of the Warp, a wise sage of immense intellect. From that being, he learned what the future of the Imperium would become.
Not only that—through it, he learned that his two brothers had changed, and that a man named Bruce would one day bring ruin to mankind, even seize control of the Imperium itself like some tyrant.
"Huh?!"
The sheer amount of information made Bruce's brain jam for a moment, so he grabbed onto the part that mattered most to him.
Then he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"Did you really inherit the Emperor's wisdom?"
Magnus's entire testimony had left Bruce with only one conclusion:
This guy was a complete idiot.
A dumb, dumb, colossal moron.
Some stranger on the internet told you something and you just believed it?
That was a Warp entity, for heaven's sake! And you trusted it?!
And trusting it would have been bad enough, but you went so far as to raise your hand against your own brothers.
Yes, Curze and Horus had changed form. But had you ever actually asked them whether anything about themselves felt wrong? And when they entered the throne chamber, didn't you test them yourself?
There was no sign of Chaos corruption on them. No so-called curse either. The evidence had been right in front of your face, and you still chose to do whatever you wanted.
What exactly were you trying to achieve?!
"You..." Magnus heard Bruce's verdict and immediately flushed red with rage. The golden patterns on his skin, which had only just dimmed, flared back to life again.
He clearly wanted to punch Bruce right then and there, but under Curze's icy stare, all he could do was grind his teeth and swallow it.
"Even if that's true..." Magnus said at last, sullen and aggrieved, "did you really have to say it so directly?"
After a long pause, he answered Bruce's question.
"You refused to listen to your brothers, but you did listen to that so-called guardian," Bruce shot back heatedly. "Do you even know what it is? You just trusted it?!"
"What if it was a Chaos daemon, trying to trick you?"
"And what if it wanted to use you to destroy the Emperor's plans while also corrupting your two brothers?!"
"What exactly did it do to earn that much trust from you?!"
Bruce truly could not understand it. A suspicious online stranger had somehow won Magnus over so completely that he was willing to turn on his own brothers for its sake.
Did it drug you? Pay you? What?
"I..." Magnus had started to answer, only to hesitate. In the end, he sighed.
"Speak. I know you want to," Curze said, raising her fist again.
"Fine, fine, I'll talk! I'll talk!"
Faced with that threat, Magnus was forced to say what he had originally wanted to keep hidden. He explained the bargain he had made with the so-called sage.
The flesh-change had always plagued the Thousand Sons. Magnus had tried countless methods to stop it, but none had worked. He had even sought help from the Emperor. And yet even the Master of Mankind—whose mastery over genetics bordered on the divine—had been unable to solve it.
In the end, Magnus had gambled.
He treated a dead horse as if it were still alive.
He sacrificed one eye in exchange for slowing the mutation in his sons.
And because of that result, Magnus had concluded that the "guardian" was the real thing.
"You're the one who's the dead horse!" Bruce exploded. He nearly lost his breath from the sheer absurdity of it, like his lungs were about to burst.
Magnus, after getting cursed out, merely glanced at Bruce and sighed. In the face of that abuse, he chose to endure it.
"But the future I saw was real," Magnus said bleakly. "The Imperium of Man will decline—from glory into rot. In the end... it will become like a corpse: unable to die, unable to live."
"I only wanted to change that fate. I never once intended to betray Father. I never intended to betray the Imperium."
For all the stupid and outrageous things Magnus had done—for all the ridiculous lies he had believed—that part, at least, was the truth.
He had never wanted to be a traitor.
He had only ever thought he was doing the right thing.
That was exactly why, in Curze's eyes, Magnus had gone from an arrogant idiot to a brain-damaged fool. Even Angron with a nail hammered into his skull didn't seem this stupid.
So had you really inherited Father's wisdom?!
"And you never considered," Curze asked, "that the future it showed you might only be based on today's events—on the assumption that everything you tried here would actually succeed?"
"The scenes it showed you may have been real, but not the whole truth."
"You never once thought of that?!"
She was right.
Yes, the future Imperium would descend into misery. But had Magnus ever stopped to consider why?
Ridiculous.
"But if that future really is true..." Bruce suddenly recalled the future Magnus had described, and alarm bells went off in his head. He turned sharply to Curze and Magnus alike.
Oh no.
If that was real, then wouldn't that mean—
I'd end up as some kind of ultra-overworked galactic wage slave?!
No. Absolutely not.
He did not want to become another Dante.
Saving humanity, rebuilding the Imperium—those jobs belonged to primarchs, not him. He had no desire to become a tyrant, much less "the first man of the Imperium."
That was not a blessing. That was a curse.
"No matter what," Magnus said at last, "I lost, Curze."
"I accept whatever punishment you decide upon. Kill me, or drag me before Father—I'll accept either."
"But I need to make one thing clear. I only believed half of what that being told me. I never believed the latter half."
"What? There was a second half?!" Curze and Bruce exclaimed at the same time.
"Mm..."Now that he had calmed down and thought things through, Magnus had only just realized what that so-called guardian really was.
A being of boundless wisdom. All-knowing. All-powerful. A psychic entity even greater than the Emperor.
There was only one such thing.
Though being deceived angered Magnus deeply, he was also fortunate that he had held onto one final line of caution.
If he had fully believed it, that truly would have meant utter damnation.
"So what else did it say?!" Curze demanded tensely.
"It said that if I allowed it to attach itself to my soul and participate in the ritual with me, then it could ensure I sent both you and Horus to Terra without fail. It also promised to solve the flesh-change afflicting my sons."
"But I didn't trust it."
"Because Father once told me that any aid offered by a Warp creature always comes with a motive attached. And if it wanted that badly to reach Terra, then there had to be something wrong."
"So I refused it."
Magnus paused, then lifted his chin with pride.
"I trusted it in one regard, yes—but I would never do anything that harmed Father's interests. Even if what it offered was... incredibly tempting."
Slap.
Curze jumped up and smacked him across the face again.
"And you're proud of that?!" she snarled.
Then she drove another punch into him.
"Keep talking! I want to hear exactly what else you've been hiding from me!"
At first Curze had not wanted to get rough with one of her blood brothers. She had certainly not wanted to use the techniques of a Night Lords interrogation chamber.
But Magnus had forced her hand.
If she didn't wring every last thing out of his brain, then she wasn't Konrad Curze.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 150)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter190)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter105)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter222)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 190
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 170
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/5
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 215
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 200
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/30
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 115
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 130
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 90
My Harem Is Indescribable 85
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 90
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 81
Still playing traditional Honk 69
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 65
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 60
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 61
Checking In in Demon Slayer 65
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 80
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 66
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 58
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 65
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 63
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 59
Why did they assign me to Uma 55
MYGO Beauties 56
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 45
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 49
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 26
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