AN at the end this time.

I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

Tens of thousands of years before the rise of the Emperor on Old Earth and the birth of the Imperium, when the Eldar Empire was at its strongest, there was a species of aliens that went unnoticed by the larger galaxy. Like countless races before them, they had evolved on a single world, gaining sentience and forming civilizations that warred against one another for many centuries before first leaving their homeworld in intra-system crafts, exploring other worlds but never truly settling them. Soon after, the first psychically active individual amongst them appeared, and they rejoiced at this next step in their evolution.

But under the rule of the Eldars, the galaxy was a cruel place to those other than the Children of Isha. The Gods of the Eldar, Warp-constructs of immense power, had pushed back the forces of Chaos from their domain, shielding the heirs of the Old Ones from their depredations. In return, the rest of the galaxy boiled with the resentment of the Dark Gods, and the accumulated pressure in the Warp needed but the slightest opening to spill into the Materium.

So it was that these first psykers became vessels for the powers of Chaos, their flesh turning into horrendous gateways into the maws of Hell. Hordes of daemons invaded the aliens' world, feasting on the souls of the dead. The locals fought back with all their might, and for a time they even managed to hold back the tide. But the advance of Chaos was unstoppable, and nation after nation fell until at last, there was only one city remaining.

In that city, one of the few psykers whose will had resisted the coming of Chaos, looked upon the hordes massed at the walls and despaired. He knew his people were doomed, that soon the walls would fall and the last trace of his species would be wiped out. For days on end, that knowledge ate at his resolve as he fought to protect the city, unleashing his power on the scions of Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch. But no matter how many daemons he banished, more always came, driven on by the unending hunger of the Dark Gods.

Finally, after almost a year of desperate struggle, the will of the psyker broke. He came to believe that a quick end was preferable to this hopeless struggle. He tore open the gates of the city, welcoming the daemons inside, expecting to be torn apart by their claws, but instead the Neverborn rushed past him, not a single one touching him. The city fell in hours, and the last people of an entire species died in fire and horror, while their betrayer laughed, his mind broken by the realization that he alone would survive – the hope that would be denied his specie would be granted to him only.

As a reward for his betrayal, that one survivor was blessed by the Changer of Ways. The God of Magic took him under his wing, and sent him through the Empyrean to lead other daemonic incursions on dozens of worlds, bringing entire species to the same horrible end that had befallen his own. Each conquest brought the betrayer more rewards from his patron, twisting him ever further, until the day when he shed his mortality and ascended to the ranks of the Neverborn he had led in battle. His identity burned away by the fires of Change, he received a new name, granted to him by the god that now owned his very existence. The creature he became cast way its old appearance, erasing the last image of its former species with it, and instead assumed the aspect of one of the Changer of Way's own creatures. It continued to serve the Lord of Lies, until the day when it met the Awakened One on a nameless world.

Now, Serixithar, Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, stood before Arken. Free from the restraints that had bound it to the service of the Forsaken Sons, its essence incarnated in the flesh of one of Pareneffer's experiments. From what the Chaos Lord could see, this particular blasphemy against the False Emperor's gene-work had been based on the Blood Angels' Primarch. Power radiated from the winged creature in an aura of twisted glory that filled Arken with an instinctive disgust and urge to destroy, but it did not mask the unmistakable presence of a Neverborn of great power hiding within.

'Did you really think there would be no consequences to what you did to me ?' mocked the daemon. 'You fool. No mortal can control Chaos, Arken. All that you have done is exposing yourself to it, letting it reshape you into an instrument of the Dark Gods – an instrument that has now outlived its usefulness.'

'Damarion !' Arken vociferated into the vox. 'Get in here, now !'

Serixithar laughed at his prey's call for aid. The Daemon Prince negligently raised a claw, and a field of energy emanated from it, covering the walls of the entire Cathedral. Only static answered Arken's transmission.

'No help is coming, Arken,' gloated the servant of Tzeentch. 'I told you : just you and me.'

'How ?!' shouted the Chaos Lord. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Arken's composure was actually shaken. 'Asim and the others sealed you aboard the Hand of Ruin. How can you be here ?'

'It wasn't easy,' admitted the Daemon Prince. 'I was only able to slip a fraction of my essence through the wards, and into one of the Fleshmasters' replica experiments. Not enough to manifest my true power … but I am a servant of Tzeentch. I don't need brute force to reach my goals. I helped dear Parennefer to complete his work – the poor man would never have succeeded without me – and then I transferred my fragment into the last Child remaining.'

Serixithar shivered, as if remembering some dreadful experience.

'The mind of that creature was … stronger than I had anticipated, but I was still able to crush it. Then, all I had to do was use the link between the two pieces of myself to gather all of my power into this body. It is sturdy enough to bear such strain without breaking down; with it, I shall walk the plains of the Materium forever, unbound by the constraints that afflict my kind. Truly, I am indebted to you,' it concluded, mocking.

'So it was you who opposed us since we arrived in this system. I thought …'

'You thought as I intended, oh Awakened One,' mocked the daemon. 'I guided your thoughts so that you believed another of my kin had turned his attention on your little group. You focused your eyes on the moves that opposed your conquest, and thus didn't notice my preparations to escape.'

'What do you want, Serixithar ? Revenge ?'

'Of course I want revenge,' growled the Daemon Prince before calming down. 'And now, here we are at last. Your Sorcerers have exhausted themselves against the sons of the Avenging Sons. All others of your allies that could be a threat to me have been neutralized, from that brute of the War-Given-Form to the witch-son of the White Naga. Your army is scattered, and even your guards do not know of the danger you are in. I am going to kill you, Arken, and then, I am going to take your warriors as my own.'

'They will fight you,' spat the Chaos Lord. 'They will never kneel before you.'

'Indeed, most of them won't, and these will die,' said Serixithar with a cruel smile. 'But there will be some who see that I am the only one capable of leading them to true glory, and they will be worthy of serving me. The warband will be purged, and I shall bestow upon the survivors the gifts of the Changer of Ways, remaking them into instruments worthy of serving me. Then, I shall take your ship to wander the stars and do my master's bidding.'

'And do you know what the most amusing part is in all of this ? Without you, I couldn't have accomplished half of what has happened since we first met. I couldn't have unleashed the Storm, I couldn't have set up your precious Anchoring … and I couldn't have killed this scion of the Anathema so easily.'

'What are you talking about ? You were the one behind that false priest's power. He was no threat to you – even if he believed that his abilities came from the False Emperor, you could have proven him otherwise – and you probably would have enjoyed his realization.'

Serixithar laughed again.

'Oh, Arken. Still so blind despite seeing so much. No, no, no. Neither me nor any of my kin were responsible for the power that flowed through that man and his disciples.'

'Then he was a psyker ?'

'In a way, with your limited understanding of the link between this realm and the Empyrean, I suppose you could say that. But the truth is, he was exactly what he claimed to be, Arken. He was blessed by the Anathema, a vector for the power of the Corpse-God. Though the Sacrificed King has mutilated its physical shell, the Anathema remains powerful in the Sea of Souls. In a place such as this, halfway between the galaxy and the Realm of the Gods, is it truly that shocking to you that all these humans' faith wouldn't have consequences ?'

'You lie ! The False Emperor is not a god ! He is dead on His throne, a corpse worshipped by fools !'

'I have no need to lie, not when the truth is so much more delightful. And the Anathema isn't dead, Arken. Not yet. One day, perhaps, and the galaxy will tremble when that happens … But for now, he lives, and fights the Four in the Empyrean. Your father has wounded him, though – so much so that all he can do now is shield one world from the winds of Chaos, pieces of his soul breaking off under their assault. It was one of these fragments that reached to the priest, and answered his faith in your grand-sire.'

'And it was enough to shield this city from much of the effects of the Storm, guide the Sons of Calth here, and create spots of holy ground across the world.' The Daemon Prince shook its head. 'To think that even such a small piece would have such power … Truly, the Four were right to raise the Sacrificed King to bring down the Anathema.'

Revelation was, Arken had found out, a truly unpleasant process. He had experienced it several times in the past – when he had first learned the truth of the Emperor's plans for Mankind, when he had first looked at his sword and saw it red with the blood of his brothers, and lastly when he had heard the call for retreat after the death of Lupercal. It was agonizing to fell your entire world view falling apart, as if a veil you had never noticed was ripped away from the front of your eyes.

The very idea that maybe, just maybe, the Master of Mankind had had a plan for Humanity before Horus rose against him, that Chaos wasn't the only way for the species to survive, was shaking Arken to his core. Knowledge gleaned in the Oracle's Chamber combined with what he had learnt during the Heresy, and presented him with a vision of wondrous glory. He saw, for one terrible moment, what the future could have been like if the Heresy had never happened – if Horus, Lorgar and the others had trusted their father's design and followed His plans.

He saw the Crimson King sat upon the Golden Throne, directing the course of the Imperium's fleets across the deepest tides of the Warp, where even the Dark Gods did not held sway, without the need for Navigators. He saw Horus leading the forces of Mankind from one end of the galaxy to the other, crushing all enemies of Man and forcing the other xenos species into hiding, never again to be a threat to the Imperium's supremacy. He saw the promises of the Great Crusade made truth, as the darkness of Old Night faded away forever before the light of scientific progress and peace. He saw the Emperor battling Chaos in the Sea of Souls with the aid of a billion bound psykers, shielding the souls of all Mankind from their touch, and letting them starved of the emotions that gave them power …

… Arken crushed these thoughts, and cast them out of his mind, refusing to consider them for even another second. He rejected them, telling himself that they were nothing more than delusions, that the False Emperor had betrayed all Mankind for His own selfish ends. War was the only constant in a galaxy of endless conflict and bloodshed, and only through power could a species survive the tides of history. He convinced himself that the Primordial Truth he had embraced when he had followed his Primarch to rebellion was the only truth, and that all others were lies or naive delusions, with no place in the grim darkness of the galaxy.

And in doing so, he never noticed that he was deceiving himself, casting off the final shred of humanity in his soul alongside his last hope of redemption. Within the Warp, Tzeentch laughed at the sublime irony of that greatest of betrayals : the lie to the self, from which all evil is originally born. The Architect of Fate accepted this offering of the self-blinded Awakened One, and bestowed his dark blessing upon Arken's endeavour on Parecxis.

Arken opened his eyes – he hadn't noticed having closed them – and stared at Serixithar. The scion of Tzeentch stopped when it saw the look within the Awakened One's pupils.

'It doesn't matter if you have deceived me,' said the lord of the Forsaken Sons in a sepulchral, emotionless voice. 'As long as I defeat you there, everything you have done will be meaningless.'

Serixithar laughed again – but this time, there was an edge of uneasiness in the Neverborn's voice.

'I have already told you : you are alone, Arken. You have no hope of defeating me, a lord of the Court of Change !'

The Chaos Lord flexed his hands, making the lightning claws tingle softly against each other with the sizzle of power fields making contact. Then, a dead smile appeared on his face, and he said :

'We shall see about that, Oracle,' and charged the Daemon Prince as it shrieked in fury at the reminder of its humiliation.

The Traitor Legions had learned much about the nature of the Warp during the Horus Heresy. Before, like the rest of the Imperium, they had believed in the lies of the so-called "Imperial Truth" : that it was a realm of pure randomness, populated by mindless predators. But through the teachings of the lodges, they had seen with their own eyes the cruel deities that dwelled in its depths. They had paid in blood for the lesson that, no matter that the Warmaster was allied with the Primordial Annihilator, the Neverborn would still devour his warriors' souls just as eagerly as they would those of the Emperor's. Entire ships had been lost when ill-fated visionaries had attempted to bring the power of the Warp to battle, their crew consumed and replaced by legions of daemons. Worlds had burned in the wake of the Fifteenth Legion forces that had joined the rebellion, as Sorcerers rent apart the walls between reality and the Sea of Souls and allowed the Neverborn passage. The Word Bearers had perfected the art of creating Possessed from those in their ranks willing to offer up their flesh to the Ruinous Powers. Librarians had learned how to draw upon the powers of daemons to fuel their own, many losing their very souls to ill-advised compacts. The Death Guard … well, the less said about Mortarion's attempts to escape his fate, the better. To Arken's knowledge, only the Night Lords had managed to escape the spread of warp-craft among the Nine Legions, though with their father dead, he didn't know how long that would last.

Through trial and error, those fighting under Lupercal's banner had learned how to use the forbidden powers of the Warp, paying for that knowledge with the lives of thousands of their brothers. But even the greatest of the Thousand Sons' loremasters knew little about the creatures commonly called Daemon Princes. Several of them had fought alongside the Traitor Legions during the Heresy, but it was difficult to distinguish them from the other Greater Daemons that had been sent by the Four. In the end, it had been discovered that they had once been mortals, and had been elevated to their current statute by the Dark Gods as a reward for exceptional deeds. Many among the Legions had been fascinated with the prospect of true immortality and near-unlimited power, and they had dedicated themselves to the Ruinous Powers, hoping to reach daemonhood themselves. Even now, in the Eye of Terror, countless champions fought to catch the sight of their patron, killing their own in search of glory.

Fools, all of them. Arken knew more about the princelings of the Four than most, thanks to his sessions in the Oracle's Chamber. They were powerful, true, but they had been powerful before being stripped of all their free will and made into puppets of the Dark God that owned them – exceptional warlords, peerless fighters or sorcerers of untold skill. He wasn't quite certain that ascension actually brought anything to those who underwent it, safe for a way to endure beyond death. To a warrior such as him, it seemed a poor bargain to make. All Daemon Princes, for all their pomp and power, were nothing more than the slaves of the Ruinous Powers – favored slaves, but slaves nonetheless.

And Arken firmly believed that a slave could never hope to defeat him. Serixithar had outwitted him, true. And it was also true than last time they had fought, Arken had a thousand Astartes with him, including the Sorcerers of the Coven. But he was stronger now than he had been then – and in truth, he had always suspected that bringing the entire warband had been monstrously overkill. Whatever the Daemon Prince had been before Tzeentch had made it his plaything, now it was a deceiver, a schemer, not a fighter. It wanted the warband because it was unsuited for battle itself. Its pride and desire for revenge had made it arrange this confrontation – so be it. The Awakened One would show the scion of the God of Lies what it meant to fight a true warrior.

In response to Arken's thunderous charge, Serixithar lifted its clawed hands and released a stream of blue witch-fire – the mutating breath of its god. It engulfed the Astartes' body, and he felt his flesh begin to twist under its touch.

He screamed, more to gather in will that because of any pain – the witch-fire wasn't immediately painful, not until it turned your bones into liquid or something like that – but to focus. He was acutely aware of every cell in his body, and he willed them to remain as they were, to not lose their cohesion and turn him into something he wasn't. Despite that, he sensed that something had changed, that his gene-forged flesh would never be quite the same again. No one could bathe into the raw power of the Warp and emerge unchanged, no matter how strong-willed or elevated in the eyes of the Gods.

But regardless of the alterations that had just been inflicted to his body, he was still a Chaos Lord in Terminator armor. He kept charging, and burst from the cloud of flames, less than two meters from Serixithar. Something like shock passed on the distorted face of the Daemon Prince, quickly replaced by fury, and it leant forward, determined to meet Arken's charge head-on.

The two of them crashed into one another with enough strength to flip a Rhino on its back. They fought with all the fury they possessed, tearing at each other's form with their own claws. In many ways, they were similar; but in others, completely different. Each torn muscle and gush of tainted blood made Serixithar scream in agony, unused as the Neverborn was to pain, while Arken fought in silence, safe for the occasional grunting. And while the claws of Serixithar were more than hard enough to pierce through ceramite, the Daemon Prince's attacks were wild and unfocused, and more often than not merely glanced off the war-plate. Arken's lightning claws, however, tore through flesh with reckless abandon, inflicting huge wounds that closed almost instantly but added to Serixithar's distraction.

The simple truth was that Serixithar wasn't used to fighting directly, let alone in close quarters. The creature had hoped to break Arken's will at the beginning of their confrontation, and so to secure an easy victory. Then, the Chaos Lord had resisted the single attack it had been able to loose in the time before they locked claws. Now, it was forced to fall back on the instincts of the body it inhabited – instincts that had been severely damaged by the brutal possession.

'You are betrayed again, daemon,' growled Arken in between strikes. 'Tzeentch must be laughing !'

'Yes, He is,' hissed Serixithar. 'But at whom ?'

Arken replied by closing his eyes and shoving his head at the daemon in a typical Cthonian head-butt. The power field surrounding his helmless skull reacted violently to the Warp-filled presence of Serixithar's body and detonated in a flash of blinding light. Serixithar was pushed backward by the flow of kinetic energy, while Arken felt Merchurion's priceless device overload and burn out within his armor, filling his nostrils with the scent of burned wire.

Then, forcing his Terminator armor into a motion it had never been designed for, he lifted his right leg and rammed his boot on Serixithar's chest. The force of the impact forced the Daemon Prince into the ground with enough strength to shatter bone and stone alike. The Neverborn trashed beneath his foot, but he kept it pinned in place before slashing again with both hands, cutting the creature's throat and tearing apart something in its chest that felt like a heart. Blood poured into the cracks on the floor, forming patterns that were entirely too familiar to the Chaos Lord.

'I might be only a pawn in the Great Game,' groaned Serixithar, every syllable causing black blood to spill from its mouth. 'But you are no different, Awakened One !'

'With your defeat, I honor Tzeentch,' growled Arken through gritted teeth, ignoring the daemon's taunt and the laughter of the Dark Gods filling his skull. 'With the abandon of your secrets, I fulfill my part of the covenant ! Let the Anchoring be complete, and the Storm howls forevermore !'

To Nurgle, he had given Talexorn. Pharod's pestilence had transformed the hive-city into a miniature of the Grandfather's Garden, and reduced its population to mindless puppets of rotting flesh or willing agents whose souls had been reshaped by the Rot.

To Slaanesh, he had offered the return of the Sha'eilat, and the demonstration of their own dedication to the Prince of Excess with the fall of Nalemos. A new city had risen from the ruins of the northern hive, a domain of flesh-atrocities and genetic manipulations not seen since the Ultramarines had liberated the system during the Great Crusade.

To Khorne, he had dedicated the deaths of the Sons of Calth. The scions of Guilliman had died warriors' deaths, fighting till the end against the inevitable. This made their skulls all the more valuable to the Blood God, and the death of an entire Space Marine Chapter was an event momentous enough to earn much favor even from the never-sated War-Given-Form.

Now, with Serixithar's defeat, the offerings were complete. The Dark Gods had been paid fealty, and the time had come for the reward Arken had demanded when he had established the covenant. The Warp Storm he had unleashed on the surface of Isleas would become permanent, fuelled by the souls of those caught within it. All of their torment, their anguish and despair, their desires and hatreds, would flow to the raging tides and keep them burning across the Trebedius Sector. The Forsaken Sons would be safe from Imperial retribution, without needing to beware the other warbands that now dwelled in the older Warp Storm, near the galactic core.

Such a feat was far beyond the abilities of any Sorcerer, be he mortal or Astartes. Not since the Word Bearers had unleashed the Ruinstorm upon the Five Hundred Worlds had such an achievement be realized. It was the stuff of legends, a godly feat that could only be performed by the Ruinous Powers themselves – and even then, they needed to act in accord. This was no Eye of Terror, birthed by the destruction of an alien empire that had stood unrivalled for countless aeons. This was the will of a being of flesh and blood writ upon the stars by the Dark Gods in return for the proof of his dedication to their own designs.

And even then, they required a proper conduit, a capstone to the edifice of dark rituals Arken had performed with the war for Parecxis. A vessel for all the power required to sustain the Storm, through which all the torment of the Trebedius Sector would flow yet which wouldn't be immediately destroyed. It needed to possess a presence in the Warp and the Materium both in order to maintain the link, but no mortal could possibly endure it for more than a few seconds. When he had first thought of the ritual, Arken had wondered how to procure a suitable Anchor. He had thought about using multiple sacrifices by installing a system where the psykers of Parecxis were brought to the site of the Anchor and added to the conduit. But then he had sensed the daemon opposing his forces, he had known that one of the Neverborn would make the perfect vessel.

Arken felt the Warp answer to his call, and moved off the prone Daemon Prince just in time to avoid being caught in what happened next. With his existence caught in the net of the ritual of Anchoring, Serixithar screamed in agony as its essence and the body it occupied were torn apart on the molecular level. Unable to die, its flesh kept alive by the prodigious endurance of a Child of Woe, it was all the Daemon Prince could do to express its torment. Arcs of crimson lightning tore through the Cathedral's ceiling, piercing the stone and revealing the Storm above before slamming into Serixithar. Smaller arcs of energy jumped from Serixithar, pulverizing stone and twisting icons of the Ecclesiarchy into daemonic shapes.

Soon, it was impossible to see Serixithar's incarnated form inside the vortex of Warp-energy. The screams of the Daemon Prince were matched in volume by the howls coming from the convergence of power, as the souls of all the dead of the Trebedius Sector were drawn into one Chaotic singularity. The ritual was complete : the Warp Storm unleashed by Arken would endure as long as there were mortals suffering within it.

Slowly, with every motion making his injuries flare with white-hot pain, Arken turned his back on the Anchor and walked out of the Cathedral.

Damarion saw his master emerge from the Cathedral moments after the … the … whatever had happened inside that had called down the wrath of the heavens on the building. The armor of the Chaos Lord was covered in gashes, and Arken himself was pale and walking unsteadily, as if drained of energy. Damarion rushed to his side, supporting the Awakened One with one arm while holding the combi-bolter affixed on the other in the gate's direction.

'My lord,' he said, eyes fixed on the gate. 'What happened ? Are you in need of medical attention ?'

'Yes,' replied Arken in a voice that was entirely too weak for Damarion's peace of mind. 'I am afraid I do. As for what happened in there …' A touch of the familiar steel returned to Arken's voice as he continued : 'We have won the war for Parecxis, brother.'

Then he went silent, clearly struggling against exhaustion and pain alike. Damarion activated his vox-link, calling for the nearest Fleshmasters to come to his position at once, and for Perseus to get down with the Thunderhawk immediately in case the Awakened One required evacuation to the Hand of Ruin.

'Bring me up to speed,' said Arken after a few moments. 'Have the Sha'eilat found the way to the underground yet ?'

'Ezyrithn reported a few minutes ago, my lord. He and his group found the entrance and killed the Sons of Calth who defended it. They are in the process of forcing the humans inside out … sometimes literally.'

'No word from Orpheus ?'

'The Firstborn told me that our brother had fallen victim to some psychic attack. They left a cadre of guards to defend him while they continued their advance.'

'Good,' coughed the Chaos Lord. 'What about … what about Parennefer ?'

'The Fleshmaster from the Thousand Sons who asked to be dispensed from joining the Coven ? I have heard nothing from him.'

'Find him,' ordered Arken. 'Find him now. He may be in grave danger, and I want to have words with him. We are leaving this place as soon as possible. There is nothing left for us here, and I don't want any of our brothers – or the slaves, for that matter – to be exposed to what's inside this building.'

The emphasis wasn't lost on Damarion, and the former Captain relayed his master's orders to the other groups scattered across the hive. Then, he asked :

'What is inside, if you can tell me ?'

There were several seconds of pause as Arken considered whether or not to answer. Then, he said :

'The Oracle. Serixithar believed he had outthought me and could outfight me as well. It was right in the former, but I showed him just how wrong it was about the latter.'

'The daemon betrayed us ?' noted Damarion, before adding : 'that's hardly a surprise. A Neverborn, and one of the Changer of Ways at that … I was always suspicious that we captured it in the first place. Was that part of its plan ?'

'No, it wasn't, denied Arken. 'And it will serve still, no matter what it wants. The bargain I struck has been completed. We are done here.'

Then the Fleshmasters began to arrive, rushing to the aid of their master, while the shape of the warlord's personal transport appeared in the sky. With several former Apothecaries pressed around him, inspecting his wounds and applying first aid, Arken the Awakened One was brought aboard the gunship and off-world, back to the ship he had saved from the devastation of Terra and used to unleash horrors untold upon the Parecxis system.

It would be the last time Arken set foot on Parecxis Alpha in a long, long time.

The two Unbound found the Fleshmaster next to a line of Astartes corpses. The remains of several dozens of Forsaken Sons had been dragged here for extraction of their gene-seed, prior to the scavenging of their gear and the disposal of their bodies. As he marched toward Jikaerus, Mahlone mused that he had no idea how the corpses would be disposed of. The Sons of Calth's skulls had been taken for the burning pyramid in front of the Cathedral, their bodies left to rot where they had fallen or desecrated. But what was planned for the bodies of the renegade Legionaries ? He would have to find out later. First, there was a far more important matter to address.

Jikaerus didn't rise from his work when the two younger Astartes stopped a few steps away from him. He was busy extracting the progenoid glands of a fallen Forsaken Son in the colors of the Alpha Legion – the same the Fleshmaster had once belonged to. Only after the two organs had been removed and secured inside sealed containers did he deign to rise and face Mahlone and Ygdal.

'I see you have changed your helmet, Mahlone,' he said as a greeting. 'What happened to the old one ?'

'It met a Dreadnought's fist,' replied the Unbound. 'And the desiccated son of Guilliman inside had some … interesting things to say when he saw my face.'

He didn't say anything more, letting the unspoken question hang in the air between them. He thought that he saw a minute hesitation in Jikaerus' body language, but it could easily have been an illusion. The Fleshmaster looked Mahlone up and down for several moments, before saying :

'Interesting. I always knew there would be a time when you found out, unless you got yourself killed too quickly. I will admit I expected a more … sanguine reaction.'

'I managed to talk some sense into him,' replied Ygdal, his tone dark. 'Sorry if it wrecked up the variables in one of your little experiments.'

Either oblivious to Ygdal's accusation or unwilling to acknowledge them, Jikaerus waved the matter aside.

'Don't worry about that. I knew you two would stay together from the moment I saw you with my own eyes for the first time. You are a positive influence on your brother's development, Ygdal.' Something of Ygdal's feelings about that statement must have pierced through the armor he wore, because Jikaerus paused to look at him before adding : 'I know the reason for which you initially agreed to come with me aboard the Hand of Ruin. Revenge against was good enough a motivation then, but you should be beyond such things now. I did not plunge your world into eternal night. Without my presence, without the modifications I wrought upon the survivors of Mulor Secundus, the tribes would have been wiped out in a few years. And thanks to me, you have become so much more than you could ever have been otherwise.'

'We are not here to talk about what you did in the Dark Lands,' cut off Mahlone, using the name his people had given to the light-deprived, time-dilated world upon which he and Ygdal had been born. 'I want to hear your reasons for what you did to me during my Ascension.'

'So careful with your words. But if we are to talk about this, we must be able to do so freely. Here, let me take care of that.'

There was a hissing sound on the vox, then communication was clear again, safe for an identified background static that reminded Mahlone of the noise in some of the darker, less-frequented corridors of the Hand of Ruin.

'What was that ?' asked Ygdal.

'Something I acquired from our tech-priests. Our vox-link is secure now, no one in the warband will hear what we talk about, nor will our other allies. Remember that I have as much reason as you to want to keep this matter secret – perhaps even more.'

'Very well. Then,' Mahlone took a deep breath, 'what in the name of the Dark Gods were you thinking when you implanted Thirteenth Legion's gene-seed in me ?'

The Unbound hadn't raised his voice, but every word had been dripping with threat and barely contained fury. Jikaerus took several seconds to reply, searching for the best way to answer. When he spoke, his voice was dead calm, completely at odds with the behaviour of his two creations.

'There were several reasons. One of those was, in all honesty, petty revenge. You know I was once of the Alpha Legion. Long before my Primarch decided to join Horus, we were at odds with the Thirteenth Legion. Guilliman – may the Dark Gods take his soul – accused us of cowardice because we were willing to think rather than risk our lives needlessly. Maybe the bastard has learned otherwise since then; I know there were some elements of my former Legion operating within Ultramar. But to have one of his own sons created by my hands and fighting against the False Emperor was deeply satisfying for me.'

'I can't possibly be the only Space Marine with XIIIth Legion's gene-seed who fights against the Imperium,' protested Mahlone.

'Of course not !' Jikaerus' composure briefly broke as he chuckled, before reasserting itself. 'There probably isn't any record of that in Imperial archives, not after the purges that must have followed the Heresy at least, but I know better. Entire Companies of Ultramarines defected when the war erupted. Some because they believed Horus was right, others because of Chaotic infiltration, and many other reasons. But they were Ultramarines born within the confines of the Thirteenth Legion. You are probably the first son of Guilliman to have Ascended in the midst of renegades, though I cannot be certain of that. There were many projects aimed at replenishing our ranks quickly during the Heresy. But regardless, that didn't diminish my personal satisfaction when I saw you fight against the Sons of Calth.'

'The second reason,' continued the Fleshmaster, 'was that the warband needs all the Astartes it can get. We have hundreds of progenoid glands harvested from the Ultramarines who boarded the ship at Terra, but they were mostly untouched when I came to the vaults. I wanted to confirm that they could be used, and that the warriors produced by it would be willing to follow the command of the Awakened One.'

'That seems highly unscientific of you', noted Ygdal. 'Which Primarch's gene-seed runs through us shouldn't affect whether or not we are loyal to the warband.'

'We do not live in a universe controlled by logic and rational facts,' replied Jikaerus dryly. 'Our experiments with Astartes hybrids have shown us that even if the gene-seed itself does not carry any particular variation, the traits of the Primarch it belongs to can affect the subject. It may be due to the memories ingrained in the genetic material, or an echo of the Warp – we do not know. But I wanted to see whether or not you would emerge from your transformation sarcophagus reciting the Codex Astartes.'

'Wait,' intervened Mahlone. 'When I was in the sarcophagus, I dreamt of things that had happened before – of the Great Crusade, and the rebellion. These memories were from the point of view of a rebel Legionary. In fact, one of my dreams was a vision of Isstvan V. For a long time, I thought these were genetic memories brought to the fore by the procedures of Ascension, but that cannot have been the case, can it ?'

'Arken demanded that we remove the conditioning part of the Ascension,' explained the Fleshmaster, 'but we still needed a way to train you to wear power armor, use a bolter, fight in squads and tactics, all that. We scanned the brains of dead warriors and extracted their memories, which were then passed to you while you slumbered. Not a perfect process – that would have risked erasing your minds and replacing it with some nightmarish composite revenant – but enough that you barely needed training when the transformation was complete. That was the source of your dreams. We used different scans for each Unbound, so it's not surprising you didn't find anyone with the exact same visions.'

There was a moment of silence. Jikaerus waited patiently for the two Unbound to think about what they had learned, and choose their course of action from there. By now, others around them had noticed that Jikaerus had stopped in his harvesting of the fallen's progenoid glands.

'Is that all ?' finally asked Mahlone. 'Revenge, and experiment ? These were your only reasons ?'

'Actually, there is a third reason' answered Jikaerus. 'I understand that it will force you to be careful around others, but I genuinely believe that in the end, these trials will make you even more powerful that you would otherwise have been. You are Unbound, Mahlone. Bloodline matters nothing to Arken, and neither should it to you.'

'I do not care for your excuses, old man,' intervened Ygdal, his voice full of promised violence. 'One day, I will have vengeance for what you did to our people. No matter what happens, that will never change.'

'I have no doubt that you will have plenty of opportunities,' laughed Jikaerus in a mirthless tone, before returning his attention to the harvesting of the fallen's gene-seed. 'The war on this world may be over, but the Long War continues.'

Standing on the bridge of the Hand of Ruin, Arken looked down upon the latest world his warband had conquered. He was still clad in his Terminator armor, despite the damage it had taken in his duel against Serixithar. They had discovered – painfully – that it was now fused to his flesh, an effect of the warp-fire the Daemon Prince had unleashed upon the Chaos Lord. Three menials had died in Arken's spasms of agony before Merchurion had understood what was going on.

Now, a swarm of servitors and lower tech-adepts attended him, repairing the damage as best they could in the circumstances. He would need to go to the armoury chambers for proper repairs later, which would involve hours – perhaps days or even weeks – of lying down while the ship's armoury serfs worked, but that would come later. The aftermath of a war was a complex affair, and he had to be present in case any complication arose.

In one of the ship's dorsal spires, the Oracle's Chamber was empty, though the wards remained in place and active. Asim and the rest of the Coven had been shocked to learn that Serixithar had managed to slip through them, and had begun working on uncovering how the Daemon Prince had done it in order to better their craft. They would also scour the entire vessel for eventual "gifts" left behind by their unwilling guest – traps, sleeper agents, and the like. But regardless of what they would find, the warband was now deprived of the visions that had guided its course since the end of the Exodus. They would need to use more traditional means of gathering information. The Sorcerers could still pierce the veil of the Warp, the Hereteks could plunder the data streams of the Imperium, and they could use cults and spy rings. These methods would be less effective than the Oracle, yet in light of Serixithar's escape and revelations, it was ultimately better that way.

Parecxis Alpha was bustling with activity. The troops that had taken part in the conquest of Asthenar were being evacuated, as were the captured civilians. Arken himself had contacted the Regent put into place by Dekaros, and made it very clear that none were to go anywhere near the Anchor. Even though Serixithar was most likely to busy screaming to plot, the Awakened One had learned not to underestimate the creature. The whole hive was now a forbidden zone, which the Regent would have to enforce. It would be interesting to see what legends about the sealed city and the endless storm of crimson lightning above it would develop among the population over the centuries.

Rough estimates put the total number of civilians found in the caves at around a billion. That number was getting lower by the hour, as the Forsaken Sons and their allies, combined with hunger, thirst and shock (as well as a great many suicides) took their toll. Regardless, hundreds of millions would survive long enough to reach their new "home". Those with useful skills would be taken as slaves for the warband, while, upon Arken's orders, the rest would be taken to the other hive-cities, where the local rulers would do with them as they pleased. Some of the mortals would be lucky enough to be sent to the human-controlled cities, but others would go to Nalemos and Talexorn – either toys for the Sha'eilat, or fertilizer for Pharod's garden. With such coin was the loyalty of monsters bought – and they had more than earned their pay in the concluded campain.

With his vengeance against the Sons of Calth complete, the Gardener had elected to return to Talexorn and continue his work for Nurgle there. Most of the Sha'eilat had also elected to return to Nalemos, though a few had volunteered to accompany the Forsaken Sons once they left the system. Already, their lords were on the orbital docks of Parecxis, commanding the hereteks there to build them their own vessels, following ancient xenos templates.

Armies were being transported into orbit, packed aboard the Hand of Ruin and the daemonships created by the Warpsmiths at the arrival of the Sons of Calth. The three daemonic vessels – the Oblivion's Keeper, Liberation's Price and the renamed Blade of Terror – had been crewed anew, with cultists who welcomed their inevitable fusion with the ships or slaves who had no say in their fate. Arken had granted each of them to one of his Warpsmiths, the only ones under his command who could bear the strain of linking with the daemonic spirits incarnated within the hulks. The daemonships were ill-suited for transportation – their corridors were, quite literally, the digestive track of leviathans – but those packed inside were only mortals, and their lives would feed the Neverborn.

Overall, the Forsaken Sons had lost something between two and three hundred Astartes since their arrival in the Parecxis system. The exact body count would come later, once the Fleshmasters had done all they could to save the wounded. Legionary physiology was designed to be hard to kill – even those who had been taken out with extreme prejudice could still be salvaged with the right combination of genius, hard work, and unholy bargains. Even Karalet, who had been bathed in burning promethium, still somehow clung to life in one of the Hall of Asclepios' sustaining tanks. Pareneffer lived as well, though he would probably never be allowed to forget how he had been left for dead by a bunch of unaugmented human soldiers, spared death only through the subconscious use of his psychic abilities.

The gene-seed of the fallen had been harvested, as had been that of the Sons of Calth – Arken didn't need to know what the Fleshmasters wanted to do with it, nor did he want to. Already, hundreds of young men were being gathered aboard the Hand of Ruin, to go through the tests that would show they were worthy of becoming Unbound. The war on Parecxis Alpha had proved that the Unbound were a viable fighting force, and that those who survived their first engagement were roughly equivalent in skill as one of the Legionaries of old.

They had found the Blood Champion rampaging through the city, crushing anything in his path. Hektor Heker'Arn had been terribly wounded by the Steel-Wrought, his wings torn apart by the Dreadnought after its control mechanisms had failed. Merchurion had been uncharacteristically furious when he had learned of the event – not so much because of the loss of the machine but because of the flaw it had found in his work. The wreckage of the Dreadnought had been recovered – it was beyond salvage, but the Techno-Adept wanted to study it in the hope of finding how Governor Tarsis had broken free. As for the Blood Champion, the Coven had been able to appease him, and bring him back to his section of the Hand of Ruin. He was further down the Crimson Path than ever, though, and Arken wasn't certain the Legionary within the monster would remain in control much longer.

By contrast, the Unbound that had been possessed by the Neverborn calling itself the Shadow of Horus had survived the battle relatively intact, and still in ascendency in his inner war. Illarion's wounds, despite their gravity, had healed in a few hours thanks to the feast of souls the Secondborn had enjoyed prior to his defeat. He was back on the ship as well, sharing the quarters of the Gal Vorbak who had survived their release behind enemy lines.

But while the war in Parecxis was over, the greater war was far from done. There were still many worlds to conquer in the doomed Trebedius Sector, many resources to claim and allies to gather. To bleed the Imperium efficiently, the renegades required more ships, more troops, more heavy armor. The daemon worlds of the Wailing Storm would provide all these things. They would be tamed, one by one, and when the last of the hundred planets had bowed to the might of the warband of the Forsaken Sons, they would be ready for the next stage of their revenge. They would leave the Storm, and sail toward the Imperium, bringing death and destruction wherever they chose, each blow bringing the dominion they had forged closer to its inevitable downfall.

Serixithar had told Arken that he was a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, a tool in the Great Game that opposed the Dark Gods to each other. But while the daemon's treachery had reminded Arken that the Neverborn couldn't be trusted, he knew that the Daemon Prince was wrong. He was master of his own fate, and it was by own will that he pursued revenge against the Imperium that had betrayed him. The Dark Gods were allies, sponsors, forces to be harnessed by those strong enough to do so without being destroyed in the process. He wouldn't let them destroy him, reduce him into a thing, a toy with which to play their Great Game in the Warp.

'Let the galaxy burn,' murmured Arken, gazing at the raging Storm with eyes filled with hatred and will, and devoid of humanity.

AN : aaaaaand here it is at last. The Parecxis campain is complete. You know, when the Forsaken Sons first arrived in the system twenty-four chapters ago, it wasn't supposed to last anywhere near this long. But more and more ideas just kept piling up.

When I started writing this chapter, events weren't supposed to unfold as they finally did. I had planned for Asim to come to the aid of Arken, and be forced to make a deal with the Herald of Blood in order to restore his strength and be able to defeat Serixithar. That deal would have resulted in Asim being consumed by the daemon. After the defeat of Serixithar, Arken would have shot Asim/Herald, and used the corpse - with the daemon still inside - as the Anchor. But as I wrote the pre-battle dialog between Arken and Serixithar, I realized that Arken would react violently to the revelation of the Emperor's godhood. This led to the scene when he rejects the very idea, deceiving himself in the process. Then, I realized that the original offering to Tzeentch - his best Sorcerer, dead by his hand after being possessed - paled in comparison to that kind of self-deception. The Thousand Sons, who are afflicted with a Legion-wide belief that they alone are in the right and see clearly, are a clear example of how much the Architect of Fate enjoys that kind of thing.

Anyway, I hope that was a satisfying climax to this arc. If you have questions, leave a review or PM me. But now, I find myself in quite a predicament as to where to go from there. There are currently three options :

Option 1 : the Forsaken Sons wander the Warp Storm, conquering new worlds and adding to their forces. This arc would take the form of self-contained chapters, each one dealing with one planet, the process of conquest, and what assets the Forsaken Sons gain from it. They are going to do it anyway, but if another option is selected, it will be off-screen, during a time lapse of undetermined length for the warband and even more undetermined length for the galaxy outside.

Option 2 : the Forsaken Sons burst out of the Warp Storm, having conquered all that is to conquer inside, and launch a Black Crusade against the Imperium. Other warbands of Chaos Marines are drawn to this war, interacting with the Forsaken Sons, while the Imperium struggle to gather the forces required to stop the invaders.

Option 3 : there are rumors of a fully functional STC device on a human world that was lost during the Age of Strife and never found by the forces of the Great Crusade. Forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus are sent to reclaim the world and, far more importantly, the holy device. But the Forsaken Sons have also heard of it, and want the device for their own hereteks. And on the planet itself, the threats of the Dark Age of Technology still endure, in the form of an Abominable Intelligence whose robotic armies have enslaved the human population thousands of years ago ...

None of these options prevent the others from being explored later (though Option 1 would need to be in flashbacks for it to make any sense). Please tell me which option you would prefer and why. I do not promise to follow the majority, but I will take your advice in consideration.

I do intend to continue this story, whatever path it may take, until its end. I already know how that will happen - but then again, I also "knew" how the battle against Serixithar was supposed to end. For now, I will focus on the next chapter of the Roboutian Heresy : the Death Guard.

That's all from me today ! Please review, follow and favorite. Having people appreciate my work always help motivate me for writing more.

Zahariel out.