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Darkness.

A horrible, sickening darkness, one not born of any material cause, not because of merely the absence of light, but absence of sanity and restraint. The complete anathema to any semblance of order, any resemblance to reason.

It was as if a cancerous tumor had grafted itself into his very soul, gobbling and feasting upon any positive thought that could be extracted from it. This fed said tumor, making it greater, only for it to require even more fuel for it's growth, and continuing the vicious cycle.

He knew where he was. He could not see, as his optics had, along with the rest of his armor mercifully turned off. But the sheer aura of such a place could not be warded off with any reinforced plating, for it was the place where the physical was irrelevant, while the spiritual found itself amidst the most perilous crossroads there could exist, assaulted by all the horrors imaginable and unimaginable, only to eventually be worn down completely and consumed by the abyss.

Kronos wished he could've died in the explosion. To burn out in a blaze of glory was the far preferred alternative to slowly, painfully fading away. And that was exactly what was going to happen to him. He could slowly feel his soul, his very essence, buckle and strain under the psychic pressure. He would hold out, he was designed to do so, but it would not be indefinitely.

And yet, there was one thing that prevented him from utilizing the Guardian Spear he still had grasped tightly to refuse the daemons any claim they could make to him or his soul. He was prevented beating them to the punch and taking his own life by a sensation: a golden, ethereal light.

The concept of light to a man stuck inside of an impenetrable armor that allowed no glimpse of the outside world, or in this case, dimension, seemed ludicrous. Kronos would have discarded such a concept himself, yet as he found himself in such a situation, he could feel said light shining upon him, lightening the burden of being a prisoner of the Warp. There was only one explanation Kronos could seriously consider: the Emperor.

The Golden Throne did not simply act as a psychic control panel for the Webway, it also projected the Emperor's psyche into the Warp, preventing daemons from infiltrating the soil of the great, beating heart of the Imperium, manifesting his will as a brilliant Golden Sun.

It was this very metaphorical, yet now all too literal sun, permitted only by the nature of the Warp, that was guiding him. Keeping him alive, keeping him sane and keeping him hopeful. Perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the Emperor might be able to locate him through his Warp signature, and retrieve him when he had the chance. When he would finally break the Arch-Traitor's rebellion and retake his rightful place as Master of Mankind, perhaps Kronos could be there to witness it.

But even as the thought grew, it was crushed swiftly under the heel of reality.

The Emperor already had his hands full with a galactic empire tearing itself apart. Even if he could feel the Custodian's presence in the maelstrom of psychic currents that was the Warp, a task comparable to locating an individual atom inside of an ocean, he doubted on whether he'd even bother dispatching the manpower to retrieve him. Irreplaceable as a Custodian was in their own way, a mission so dangerous would no doubt have far more to lose than ever to gain from rescuing a soldier that could no doubt be emulated given enough time.

Falling.

The sensation was pulling at him, yet there was no air, no sound and no end. The falling continued. For days, for weeks, for months perhaps? He knew not, and in honesty did not care. He simply continued his descent, with the foreboding sense that the conclusion to the sensation was not coming anytime soon his only companion.

He breached something at last.

Whatever layer he had fallen through, it felt like splashing into water and yet smashing into concrete. After the crash, the fall continued. The same, though simultaneously different. The pull of gravity harder, the feeling of acceleration more prevalent. And the most glaring change, the sensation of his brain pressing up against his skull. He could feel his mind, not just his grey matter, as if a physical object, contort, crack and stretch by the pressure.

Visions of pain, pleasure, ambition and death all flashed through his mind. Fundamental concepts, different though still equally necessary, with mortal and immortal alike caught in the deadly dance of the thirsting gods above them.

The Golden Sun had risen.

For the first time in what seemed like eternity, it's magnificent shine was even closer to the Custodian, as the Master of Mankind himself had descended to deal the final blow to the Ruinous Powers' minions.

Yet, in that instant of his presence, a more sinister happening did not go unnoticed: a thousand souls, crying out in anguish, as they were reduced to ash and dust, not recyclable by even the Warp. He knew not what it meant, only that the Sun was back atop his golden prison all too soon, the hordes of Warp taint driven back by will. But, the greatest tarnished spot was not found within the Immaterium, but right among the inhabitants of the physical reality, practically on Terra's doorstep.

A smell of blood hung in the air, a foreteller of events to come perhaps. The smell was sickeningly overpowering, grabbing at his breath, practically suffocating him.

But in fact, it was actually intending to drown him. His armor was filling up, it's joints tightening to a point where the slightest wrong twitch of muscles would break bones. Whether it was doing so to cause him more anguish or to prevent the fluid seeping in from the advancing mattered little. He could still feel it's ascent, the blood bubbling and shifting to something far worse.

He wanted to scream, but the air had been sucked out of his lungs, leaving his mouth agape. The liquid at last reached his helm, covering his head. He tried holding his breath, but it was useless. The liquid filled his lungs through his nostrils, seemingly consciously slipping through the orifice. Burning him from the inside out, corroding his flesh and blood.

And then it was gone. The pain, the blood, the acidic liquid; vanished.

The Golden Sun moved once more.

No longer a static observer to the war, a different beacon had replaced him. Although no less commanding in presence, it was merely a cheap imitation of what had come before, a shade of the incorruptible power once present atop the Throne of all Mankind. But that was not important at that moment. The Golden Sun moved instantaneously to another location, and was faced with his complete opposite. A golden son once among the most brilliant of his brethren, now reduced to a mockery of his former self, the very representation of Chaos.

This avatar of the Dark Gods struck at the Master of Mankind, and after a brief struggle, laid him low, practically dangling the light of his soul by the abyss. Yet although the initial strike did not make him yield completely, he refused to strike back at his son either. That was until another presence, a minuscule one in comparison to the two juggernauts, entered the fray. Perhaps a lone guardsman, perhaps an Astartes warrior, or perhaps even one of his own brethren, Kronos could not tell.

However, it mattered not, as the brave soldier soon found himself on the receiving end of mental and physical psychic raping of the worst kind, literally flayed alive from the inside out in both body and soul. The act, such a vile and foul abuse of the human spirit, reverberated throughout the Warp, a tinge of it's horrid sensation reaching even the forsaken Hell the Custodian was condemned to.

Suddenly, the Golden Sun flared to life once more, burning with rage unparalleled at his son's heinous action. Perhaps at last recognizing the hopelessness of his son's condition, he struck through a chink in the Arch-Traitor's aura, erasing his soul completely, barring it from ever being resurrected by his dark masters. His body was left without a scratch, but his essence, his very being, was entirely obliterated.

And then, just as it had burned brighter than it had ever done before, the light of the Sun died. It withered away, casting a cold emptiness within his soul, a part of it undoubtedly lost forever to the void. Kronos wanted to scream, he wanted to cry and beg. He wanted to go insane, act like a wild beast and tear anything he could get his hands on to shreds. He wanted to rage a war against the gods so great it would ignite the heavens.

But he could not do so. His body had stopped obeying him and instead he had to wait. It was all he could in this accursed place, wait and listen, and it was tearing him apart. Minute by minute, second by second, every moment wracked with pain, hate, guilt and misery. And at the brink of madness, at last, a small beacon of respite appeared.

The literal beacon, the one atop the Golden Throne, nearly extinguished, the pale imitator no doubt reduced to ash, flickered for the briefest of moments, and with it too did the Custodian's heart, only for the Golden Sun to return. Weaker, paler, yet still unmistakable, his return was a calming presence upon his wracked mind, though it could never heal the wounds that had already been inflicted on his psyche.

The prospect of a world bereft of their leader, of it's leader, once thought of as merely an impossible scenario only explored in the deepest and most silent corners of the Imperium's inhabitants, had now become an all too apparent possible reality. It terrified him, as much as anything could.

The tides were pulling at him, stretching his limbs, his body practically reduced to modeling clay. Bones made jelly, flesh made viscous. The pain? Immense, mind-numbing. It was worse than any material torture he could've ever been punished with. But it still did not hold a candle to the myriad of other tortures he was sure to face. A foreboding sensation in the back of his mind, perhaps even an enhanced sense, assured of as much.

He was beginning to long for death.

For the first time in a long time, he was bathed in actual, legitimate light. Of course, it was a shame it had to come at the cost of his armor glowing literally red due to heat.

The blistering heat, like all the plagues sent to torment him, came out of nowhere, and it did not seem to be retracting any time soon. As his flesh boiled away, leaving only charred bone, and his body continued to burn, his armor was filled with smoke smelling of scorched flesh. As the feeling of inescapable asphyxiation came on to him, combined with his fiery agony, he truly did wish for the sweet release of death.

Flies burst forth from every pore of his bloated, diseased body, tearing off chunks of half-rotted flesh, as blood flowed like macabre fountains from his wounds. The flies, stuck inside of his armor, unable to escape, sooner or later found themselves digging back into his body, consuming whole organs before laying eggs and starting the process all over again. And again, and again, and again.

His body would not die, no matter how far it decomposed.

He was far past the mere notion of death at this point.

Drifting in-between consciousness and unconsciousness, his sanity slipping with each passing day, he knew sooner or later, the Warp would break him. A Custodian's mind was a fortress, shackled with chains of adamantium, but it had been designed to face the horrors of real space first. No amount of training had prepared him for the bouts of supernatural torture that had been inflicted upon him only recently, and the only reason he was sure he had not already gone insane was because of small moments of respite like the ones he was having at the moment.

Perhaps whatever daemon that inflicted his torment grew bored after a while. They were known to be very fickle creatures, leaving the position open for another one of their wretched kin to play with the little material toy. Perhaps he was merely pondering on something worthless, as he often did during these short times of rest.

Maybe, just maybe, going insane would not be so bad? He would certainly not be feeling the same kind of pain as he did now, and the worries of the Imperium at large in his absence and the absence of the Emperor would not worry him either. Ignorance was bliss after all. All it would take would be one daemon getting a bit too excited about their precious mortal toy, and ending him truly, without a way of fixing him to only entertain further.

However, in small bursts of clarity, he did recognize these as nothing but ramblings of his half-crazed mind, desperately seeking a way out of his living Hell. Secretly he knew the daemons were keenly aware of what they were doing to him, they had done so for millennia and were not ones to let a good game cease. He also knew that going insane might just further his suffering even more. But hope was all that was left to him in this horrid perversion of reality.

As these thoughts went through his wracked brain, he slowly felt himself growing more aware, awakening from his half-slumber fully. This sensation usually applied itself when whatever infernal creatures live in this place desired to manipulate him for their own amusement, so he prepared his mental barriers, for all the good they were going to do. Yet...nothing came. No immeasurable anguish of the mind, body and soul struck. He was left floating, as he usually was before the daemons took interest in him.

And then he felt it. Shining upon him with the intensity of a supernova, yet only as warm as a comfortable summer breeze, the Golden Sun himself was upon him, it's ethereal light taking him to a golden chamber of greatness, one mimicking it's material counterpart in every way perfectly. There, at the top of his Golden Throne, stood...

"My...my Emperor..." Kronos kneeled before his master, joyous nearly to the point of tears. But then, he remembered where he was. The haze of happiness stricken temporarily from his mind, he became more wary immediately. What if it is a daemon's trick?

"Is there something the matter, my son?" the Emperor said in the booming, authoritarian voice he had always known, yet there was something gentler to it. A father greeting a long lost son and servant or a daemon attempting to sugarcoat him into a false sense of security only to rip the carpet off from under his feet?

"My lord, I wish not to doubt you in the slightest," Kronos began, careful with his words. "But, I cannot be sure if I am talking to you, or a foul illusion spawned of the Warp to be used against me for yet more torment. I have been subjected to nothing but that over a period of time so long I can no longer tell you with certainty."

"A valid concern, my loyal servant. So many years of being rent apart in this damnation and yet your mind has not been numbed to logic. It is quite a feat. I will prove to you, then, my honesty. No daemon has broken you, no shade has mangled your spirit. They do not know of you, they cannot. For they have no purchase over you. So I will rise to proof by telling you of your origins."

The Emperor descended from his Throne, his glowing eyes, lit with the power of a million suns now staring right through him.

"You were born Titus Avox, son of a small noble family upon my most precious Terra, on 776.M30. You were offered as tribute to a Custodian host that had been dispatched to fill the ranks of my Companions in preparation for my Great Crusade across the stars. After vigorous testing, you were among the few deemed worthy of all of Terra's billions. Throughout your life you were quiet, introverted and typically only voiced your opinions when asked or when around those which you were comfortable with."

"In the battlefield, you were a mighty warrior, albeit amidst contingent of such mighty warriors as my Custodes, you did not distinguish yourself to a great degree. However, one feature applauded or reviled depending on whom asked that you showed was an unusually large amount of concern for the safety of others and for the greater good, even that of mortals. This led to your entrapment here, as you went in to sacrifice your life for the good of your brothers and the continued survival of Terra."

Faced with that evidence, Kronos was shocked at his ignorance, and even moreso at his insolence. In light of anything more to say, he simply responded:

"I apologize, my lord."

"It is not time to dwell on that my son, for I have greater plans for you. Dark days are coming, and the might of the Legio Custodes shall be needed once more to push back the advancing tide of horrors assaulting us. Alas, I will need a catalyst to kickstart my forces once more in glory. You will be it."

"But, my lord, why not contact me sooner? Why not tell this directly to the rest of the Custodes?"

"My courses of actions since my entrapment within the Throne are...rather limited. I can only contact you now, after such a long time, due to an unnaturally large breach between real space and the Warp, which I intend to exploit in sending you back to the lands of the living once more."

He took a break amidst his sentence then, and Kronos could see the age in him then, bearing down on his liege like he'd never seen it before.

"Even having this conversation at this moment, is pushing my limits. But that too, is not important. Some time has passed in the Materium. Things have changed, and the Imperium is not what it used to be. And everyday, it's actions bring it closer to ruin. This is where you must come in. I have long since been deprived of a vessel from which to act to fix the destruction and chaos my empire has been subjected to, and you are the first step in that. Serve me once more my son."

"Of course my lord, I will go forth and be an instrument of you will once more, never stopping until your desires are satiated, or unless my very life is sapped from my body."

"Good. The time is here. Brace yourself."

The massive golden room was suddenly torn in half by a rift, as a painful sensation unlike any of the other tortures he had felt before gripped him. Practically dragged into the rift, the Emperor's presence and his reaffirmed faith were all that kept the Custodian from insanity once more, as his whole world went white. However, just before he passed out, he could've sworn he saw his magnificent golden lord reduced to terrifying visage of ancient cybernetic skeletal remains upon a rotting Golden Throne.

The sound of waves washed over him. A gentle smell of salt and putrefaction tugged at his nostrils. It was all but certain that he was near an ocean. He attempted to get up, only to fail. He was so very tired, and his suit was still booting up. He had not the strength to stand back up without it's automatic processes helping him.

And so, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he found himself as close to a relaxing rest as possible. But his mind still sizzled and boiled with the words of his liege, and just what exactly he was meant to do in this place to fulfil his ambitions.

As his armor finally restored functionality to his limbs, Kronos raised himself from the ground with some effort, before his knees nearly buckled beneath the weight. It seemed the antics of the accursed Warp spawn had caused him even greater distress that initially presumed, but sooner rather than later, he at least found his balance, strength slowly returning to him.

However, his optics had yet to be reactivated, so with a quick movement of his hands, he disengaged the mechanisms that kept his helm firmly bolted to the rest of his suit and at last, took it off, the first fresh breath of air he had gotten since time immemorial.

Author's Notes: Holy fuckerduddles, this chapter is finally done. Feels like it's been forever to be honest, but that's probably just my workaholic side talking. If you think this chapter was a bit thin in content, it's cause I'm mostly reserving it for next chapter.

Also, yes, whenever our golden banana man refers to E-Money, it will not be in capital letters, because he was raised back when the Emprah was strictly against the whole worship thing. Not that he isn't now, he's just too corps-y to do anything about it.

As I make a point of it in every chapter, I do my fair share of research but I should never be taken as an expert on this shit. If I make any big dumbs, everybody is more than welcome to correct me.

That's basically it for this time. As always, reviews or just comments in general are very much requested and appreciated, otherwise, see you guys in the next Minecraft letsplay episode. This is your resident Imperium-sanctioned skeletal organism signing off.

29th June, 2021: Update the chapter to be less shit. Hopefully will do this to all chapters beyond this one.