Ultio Ultionis stood in the centre of the bridge amidst the carnage and mutilation meted out by him and his sons, his face and armour was covered in the drying blood of Captain Scarus. The captains headless corpse was still twitching at his ceramite clad boots, Ultio was still holding Captain Scarus' head there was a slow drip of blood droplets hitting the deck.

Ultio had his eyes closed listening to the drops mingle with shouted war cries, the bark of bolters and the thunderclap of power weapons. The sound of combat was lessening he knew his sons were finishing off the last of the Word Bearers, they would not stop until every single life was purged from the Shield of Scarus.

'My lord.' Said Wesker, as the lord commander entered the bridge he looked slightly disturbed to see his primarch holding onto the captains severed head.

Ultio opened his eyes to look upon his son choosing to ignore the unease in Wesker's eyes. 'Yes?'

'The Word Bearers have been put to the sword.' Said Wesker. 'The Shield Guard are putting down the crew and the Auxilia, I took the liberty of ordering it for I assumed you would not wish there to be any survivors.'

'You are right Wesker.' Replied Ultio. 'No one can know what was said on this vessel.'

'No one?' asked Wesker.

'No one.' Repeated Ultio, more sternly than before. 'And I do mean no one not yet.'

'Why?' asked Wesker. 'We have to plan our response to what we have found out.'

'And just what exactly have we found out?' asked Ultio.

'That the Word Bearers will undertake the Pilgrimage.' Said Wesker, he looked bemused as if he was stating the obvious. 'Surely we need to gather the lord commanders to plan how we can stop the Word Bearers from falling from grace.'

'We don't know what we've found out.' Said Ultio. 'We don't know what we know.'

'How can you say that?' Scowled Wesker. 'You heard Captain Scarus say it like I did, in sixty three years Lorgar your own brother will undertake the Pilgrimage. Have you forgotten what the god-talker said on Cadia about the Cadian's waiting for the ordained time?'

Ultio snarled then threw Captain Scarus' head across the deck to splatter against the forward viewing oculus he then roared. 'I am well aware of it!'

Despite himself Wesker visibly flinched back a half step, he was unused to his gene-sire making violent outbursts.

Ultio visibly calmed himself. 'I am well aware of what the god-talker said and what Captain Scarus told us of the future but we have to keep our heads. We already suspect that Uvall Jormungand is tainted by the warp but even then we have to take that into consideration on its own merits, insofar that he grew up on a world that was regularly swallowed by The Dark Maw.

'We are en route to Cypra Mundi to prosecute a joint action with the Bloodied Visage, we have to investigate them, we are not in a position to make plans or strike against the Word Bearers. Besides if what Captain Scarus said was true we have at least sixty years before their humbling.'

'Well we better hope he was right, we won't be able to ask him anything else.' Grumbled Wesker, kicking the captains headless corpse with his boot. 'But are you forgetting what else he said.

'If what Captain Scarus said is true then our entire legion goes missing around the time the Word Bearers are laying the foundations of Monarchia. Right now the Word Bearers have just begun the compliance of Khur we have no idea when they will start to build Monarchia but it is safe to assume that we have a lot less than sixty years.'

'Which is why we cannot risk rushing headlong into sanction.' Replied Ultio. 'We are on thin ice Wesker and the Emperor of Mankind will be under it when it breaks.'

'What?' asked Wesker, he looked bemused. 'What could the Emperor possibly have against us?'

'We witnessed a blood sacrifice on Cadia.' Said Ultio. 'A blood sacrifice that Uvall Jormungand wanted to be left to carry on unmolested, the god-talker spoke of summoning gods from the warp. We are at worst partly culpable for how far the ritual went and at best guilty of not sanctioning the Bloodied Visage. If we do not fully investigate the Bloodied Visage and take action against them if they are tainted, we may well be sanctioned alongside them.'

'That is ridiculous why would the Emperor sanction us?'

'We have witnessed talk of gods and daemons from my own brother and Captain Scarus.' Said Ultio. 'Imperials, Wesker. A Primarch and an astartes, beings that are meant to be avatars of the Imperial Truth both found on and seeking out a world whose inhabitants sacrifice humans for their so called gods.

'We are in the realms of gods and daemons, Wesker. Entire worlds and cultures have burned for less, if we carry this back to the Emperor without a resolution we risk being sanctioned alongside the Bloodied Visage.'

'But there are no gods or daemons.' Said Wesker, flatly.

'I know there aren't.' For a fraction of a second Ultio paused, it killed him to lie to his sons. 'But that means nothing the practicing of religion, the worshipping of gods and human sacrifice is outlawed.

'The existence of the creatures that reside in the warp are classified as they could easily be mistaken by the weak and easily misled as gods or daemons.

'Their existence and the practices of those who may worship them needs to be snuffed out and kept secret, therefore if we cannot control this information the Emperor may be forced to snuff us out too.

'Lest you forget the lost legions are called the Forgotten and the Purged, we don't have to be guilty of a crime or be tainted to suffer the edict of obliteration. We just need to be deemed to be too much of a risk or' deemed to know too much to suffer the condemnation of memory.'

'Do you believe Captain Scarus came from the future?' asked Wesker.

'I believe Captain Scarus believed he came from the future.' Replied Ultio. 'There again the Shield of Scarus had no data on any of our vessels at all which goes beyond some warp delusion.

'I will ask our magi and enginseers to try and find the Shield of Scarus' present location or last point of origin, if it is still in orbit of Khur then there can be no doubt in my mind that they were from the future and Lorgar will undertake the Pilgrimage.'

'If they will undertake the Pilgrimage what will you do?' asked Wesker.

'We will deal with the Bloodied Visage first.' Said Ultio. 'If the Word Bearers undertake the Pilgrimage in search of where Gods and Mortals meet then it cannot be a coincidence that sixty years before Uvall Jormungand found Cadia first. Therefore if we take out the former then the latter may not follow suit.'

'Take out?' asked Wesker. 'Will we make war upon the Bloodied Visage?'

'For the moment I am speaking figuratively.' Said Ultio. 'We will fight alongside the Bloodied Visage in Cypra Mundi, we will get the measure of them how they prosecute the foe.

'While we fight alongside Uvall and his sons we will await the investigation from the Warlocked, if the god-talkers remain then that will be evidence enough to damn them in my eyes.'

Wesker gestured to the broken corpses of the Word Bearers. 'What do we do with Lorgar's sons?'

Ultio did not answer at first he walked over the corpses, he stopped in front of the viewing oculus and stared out into the warp. Everything had changed so quickly since leaving Ghenna he had met his brother who was surely chaos tainted to some degree, he had witnessed a blood ritual on Cadia for Throne's sake. Then he had been snatched into the warp by a void leviathan, being spirited away to Drakaasi a world in the warp that was a monument to the blood god Khorne, a world that was meant to be his home world.

Ghargatuloth the chosen a greater daemon of Tzeentch had told him that not only was his brother tainted by the warp but also that there was a fifth god of chaos, who Uvall was in cahoots with. The fifth deity Malal the outcast god whose sole purpose was to let the galaxy burn in order to destroy the human race and take the chaos gods with them. Not only that when they tried to make space for Cypra Mundi a Word Bearers vessel from the future brought astartes that had attempted to undertake the Pilgrimage.

Ghargatuloth told him that Captain Scarus would tell him revelations and those revelations had chilled him to his core. Not only did the captain tell him that Lorgar had fallen to chaos, that around this time according to the timeline Captain Scarus came from The Emperors Judgement and The Bloodied Visage suffered the condemnation of memory. Something soon would present itself that if he didn't deal with it appropriately he and his sons would be obliterated from Imperial history and likely be murdered by his brothers. Right now he cannot risk anyone finding out that Captain Scarus and his brothers came from the future.

Ultio Ultionis turned to look at his son. 'The Word Bearers are to be stripped of their armour, it is to be smelted down to slag in their armoury. The corpses are to be burned to ash and ejected to the warp.

'I want the magi to rig this vessel for an emergency warp translation and I want the vessel to be rigged to atomise the Shield as soon as she translates no one can find even a trace of her is that clear?'

'Crystal, my primarch.'

'Very good.' Said Ultio, he looked to the warp once more. 'I am going to teleport to my inner sanctum I am not to be disturbed.'

Ultio closed his eyes and pressed a hidden stud on his artifice armour, he felt a sudden dislocation of space but instead of finding himself in the hexagonal space of his inner sanctum he was in a space of absolute darkness. The space was so black that not even the superhuman senses of a primarch could pierce it. Ultio Ultionis did not know where he was for the second time in his life, the first had been when he was an infant travelling through the warp.

Ultio knew that somehow he had been taken again. 'I have no wish to treat with you Ghargatuloth.'

'I am no mewling peddler of lies.' Boomed an impossible deep voice that shook Ultio to his very core down to a cellular level, for the first time Ultio felt a chill down his spine. 'I am the renegade, I am the outcast, I am the Hierarch of Anarchy and Terror.'

The blackness of the space erupted into flames that engulfed a being so gigantic it was easily the size of a Warhound titan. The thing was a monster incarnate, it was a canine beast with matted fur, with fire burning in its eyes, it bore massive horns and colossal canine teeth. The monster was colossally broad and muscled, it radiated terror and power in equal measure. 'I am Malal and I have taken you to show you what will happen if the so called Pantheon or your precious father win through and damn the galaxy to rack and ruin or utter annihilation.'