Dukel gazed into the shifting tides of the Immaterium — toward the unnatural brilliance of the Supreme Heaven. As the newly anointed Warmaster of Mankind, he bore the heavy mantle of leadership in the Second Great Crusade. He understood with clarity: the abomination lurking in that otherworldly plane was not just an enemy — it was the enemy. The paramount threat to mankind. A dark, festering cancer at the heart of the universe.
The power of Chaos was not merely terrible — it was cosmic, a force so vast and anarchic that even the Emperor of Mankind, the Master of Mankind Himself, had once felt despair before it.
But humanity and Chaos were not locked in a simple binary conflict. No — the Warp was a battlefield of five great powers: four ravenous gods, and the rising might of humanity. Even among the Ruinous Powers, hostility and ambition brewed like poison.
Their eternal internecine strife offered humanity a rare opportunity.
Now, deep within the dominion of Khorne — the Blood God's burning realm — the daemonic legions of Chaos warred with the cursed armies of the Imperium. The scale was apocalyptic. Entire pantheons clashed. The scars of this conflict were so severe that even the Immaterium itself — shaped by gods and emotion — could not heal.
The Emperor's plan was unveiled through fire and fury: now lucid and free of His Golden Throne, He had struck a bold gambit. The window of opportunity to wound the gods was brief — and He knew it would not come again. If the truth of His resurgence spread too far, the pantheon would never be caught off-guard again.
So the Emperor resolved to strike once, with maximum devastation — to drive His sword deep into the heart of Khorne's power… but not so deep that it would allow the other gods to devour the Blood God in His place.
He aimed to mire the pantheon in Khorne's domain — to trap their strength within the Red Wastes of the Warp and weaken their interference in realspace. It was a trap laid in plain sight.
But for the gods to avoid this snare, they would have to abandon their hunger for Khorne's domain… or Khorne himself would have to concede, to relinquish his throne and yield his power.
That was impossible.
The Dark Gods are creatures of boundless appetite. They would never relinquish their pursuit of power. Nor would Khorne ever kneel — not to allies, not to brothers. Never.
Dukel, too, understood this strategy. And so, after the triumphant war council, he dispatched tens of billions of priests from the Virtual Domain — techno-spiritual warriors with minds half-machine, half-faith — into the Blood God's infernal realm.
In a battlefield of gods, their numbers were mere droplets in an ocean… but it was a battle of attrition, and Dukel fought a long war.
The ultimate weapon of the Virtual Domain still wreaked havoc in the Upper Warp. Each day, more priests were born from the great foundries of data and thought. Each day, their presence grew.
Power waxed for the Imperium, and waned for the pantheon. In this war of eternity, Dukel and the Emperor believed — no, knew — they would triumph in the end.
But would the Dark Gods sit idle and await their doom?
Of course not.
Though they warred with each other without end, when faced with a unified Imperium rising under Dukel's banner, even Chaos could find common ground.
In the forbidden darkness of the Eye of Terror — a place beyond time, where the stars weep and reality bleeds — there lay a hidden sanctum.
Here, in the World of Endless Night, was the most blasphemous of vaults: the lair of Fabius Bile.
The twisted genius of the galaxy. The apostate Apothecary. The Heretek of Flesh.
For ten thousand years, Fabius had committed the most profane experiments ever known. He cloned xenos, forged hybrid species, and sculpted horrors with surgical zeal. But his proudest, most deranged legacy was the replication of the Emperor's genetic lineage — the creation of cloned Primarchs.
Yes. He even dared to unlock the genome of the Master of Mankind.
And he succeeded.
Fabius had cloned Fulgrim — and sold the clone to Trazyn the Infinite. He came close to creating a new Emperor.
But it was his successful cloning of Horus Lupercal — the fallen Warmaster, the greatest traitor of the Age of Darkness — that drew the wrath of Chaos.
When Fabius prepared to unveil his triumph, Abaddon the Despoiler descended upon his lab.
The one-time First Captain of the Luna Wolves, now the Warmaster of Chaos Undivided, tore through Fabius's fortress with brutal finality. He destroyed the clones. Even the fragments of Horus' body — long guarded like relics — were obliterated.
Abaddon believed the gene-father was erased.
He was wrong.
A genius like Fabius Bile would never keep all his tools in one place.
His laboratories were scattered across the nightmare stars of the Eye of Terror. Every idea — every unholy notion — was preserved in some hidden corner of the Warp.
And within one of these black sanctums, submerged in nutrient solution and silence, a clone of Horus Lupercal still lived.
Today, that forgotten place welcomed new visitors.
A warband of Word Bearers, accompanied by a Lord of Change — one of Tzeentch's most terrible servants — arrived with purpose.
They had come to raise a demigod from death.
"Never thought we'd need you to fight the Imperium again," muttered the Word Bearers' captain, gazing into the amniotic tank. His voice was low with reverence, bitterness, and something like regret.
Once, Horus had been the jewel of the Imperium. A warlord without equal. His charisma and strength had earned him the title Warmaster — first among brothers.
But his fall was catastrophic.
Twisted by whispers in the Warp, the great son had become a pawn, a puppet for the pantheon. A prince of betrayal. Then discarded, broken and cast aside when his usefulness was spent.
The gods had not intended to use him again.
But Dukel's rise changed everything.
Even now, the Dark Gods could not fathom what Dukel was. His presence was cloaked in a field of force, strange and impenetrable. It was like fog that devoured sight, sound, and prediction.
Only the Architect of Fate had managed to glimpse the truth.
And what Tzeentch foresaw was ruin.
The extinguishing of stars. The death of all things. The collapse of the Warp and the Material alike. A final moment when reality — all reality — dissolved into nothingness.
If that was the true fate of the universe… then Tzeentch would change it.
Perhaps even the Dark Gods never expected they would one day become defenders — that they would, in desperation, try to save the galaxy they once delighted in tormenting.
Once, Dukel's resurrection had seemed like a delightful twist in the great game.
Now, the game board itself was being upended.
Someone was preparing to flip the table.
The pantheon was left with no choice: they needed a counter. A warrior equal to Dukel.
And so, they turned to the only name that had once stood at the pinnacle of command.
Horus Lupercal.
Dukel had seized the title of Warmaster. Under his will, the shattered Imperium was slowly knitting itself back into a single, defiant empire.
To the gods, Dukel's martial prowess was the least of their concerns.
What truly unsettled them was the technology he wielded.
During the Second War for Terra, Dukel's forces had unveiled non-Warp interstellar teleportation. They communicated across light-years in real-time — without psykers. Entire fleets moved faster than prophecy could predict.
The days when gods manipulated fate through ignorance were over.
Against Dukel, even the so-called omniscient struggled.
And so, the pantheon chose resurrection.
Reviving Horus was no easy task. The Emperor had slain him with a ritual dagger that severed body and soul, and Horus's last fragments had been locked in stasis beneath the Throne's shadow.
But the gods had shared in Horus's soul. Through war, worship, and corruption, they had touched and claimed parts of him.
And now, with that essence, and with raw Warp energy drawn from the deepest depths of their realms…
They would forge the Lupercal anew.
In past wars, the truth had been proven time and time again: when a single Dark God challenged the Emperor, they faced only ruthless retaliation—inevitably retreating with their forms fractured and their pride in ruins.
Thus, the Chaos Gods came together again, their foul unity driven by desperation. They had no choice. To counter Dukel, the new Warmaster of Mankind, they had to resurrect the Warlord of old.
But time pressed heavily upon them. The Materium groaned beneath the weight of cosmic strain. If Dukel was allowed to continue his relentless march, then not even Horus's return would suffice to balance the scales.
Above the long-night world, four galaxy-sized shadows unfolded—manifestations of the Chaos Gods themselves.
The resurrection rite began.
The Word Bearers, zealots of the profane, chanted blasphemous invocations while demonic avatars writhed upon warp-forged altars. Unholy offerings were made—mortal souls, ancient relics, and daemonic essence—each a sacrament to warp Horus's reborn soul into something aligned, something obedient.
In the depths of the Warp, in a dead realm shrouded in darkness, Horus stirred.
He awoke in a desolate wasteland—a ruin so vast it swallowed the horizon. A realm of endless night, devoid of stars, devoid of light.
He rose from the ash-laden ground, naked, stripped of all symbols of past glory. The marks of the Warmaster—his armor, his legion, his pride—were gone.
He stared at his hands. The sensation was real. Tangible. He remembered fire, fury, and the thunderous cries of the Legiones Astartes.
Yes. I led a great war.
Yes. I defied the tyrant.
I sought to bring light from tyranny.
Fragments of foreseen futures tumbled through his mind—visions of a galaxy in torment, of decay born from the very Imperium he tried to stop.
"I have to act again," he whispered. "My brothers... they'll understand me this time..."
But as his thoughts swirled in chaos, he took in the devastation around him. A sinking dread tightened in his chest.
"Did I fail?"
He spoke into the dark, his voice swallowed by silence.
The long night could not blind a Primarch's eyes. His gene-forged vision cut through the void, seeing only collapse: civilization in tatters, broken monoliths blanketed by soot and ash like the discarded cloak of a dying god.
"Is anyone there?!" Horus cried.
No answer.
Only silence and the scent of death: ash, rot, and scorched earth.
Where was he? Why had he awakened here? What time was it?
He moved forward, questions clawing at him.
As he stepped, armor grafted itself to his flesh—living ceramite, pulsing with daemonic ichor. It slithered across his skin like a serpent of destiny.
By the time it was complete, he no longer resembled a man. He was once more a warlord, clad in power so terrible that mortals would collapse beneath its presence. Even the Adeptus Astartes would falter before such a terrible aura.
Yet to Horus, it felt... natural.
He walked forward.
And then the world began to change.
The ground trembled.
Mountains collapsed—bleeding rivers of sweet, boiling blood.
Ruins shifted as obsidian towers erupted from the earth. Polluted smoke belched into the air, hiding the already-lightless sky behind clouds of toxic fog.
Flesh-built castles and crystalline spires emerged. Warp-gates, gaping like fanged maws, split open across the sky.
The terrain writhed in torment.
Even a demigod could feel fear. His instincts screamed. Flee. Escape. Now.
But the storm struck first.
He was hurled into the blood-caked ash.
Storms swirled, dust became knives, and the Warp howled with malicious glee. Even Horus felt panic roil in his soul.
"I will never give in!" he roared, defiant even before the abyss.
He rose—broken world or not—and staggered forward. The nightmare pursued him.
Boiling blood churned behind. Poison followed like a shadow. His reflection danced in splinters of cursed crystal, while laughter—sickening, seductive—rose from the very ground.
Was this real? Or a punishment-crafted illusion?
It felt like the worst nightmare in the history of the galaxy.
He ran.
For how long, he didn't know. Time lost all meaning.
Eventually, he arrived at a sea of thick, viscous black—an ocean of oil and rot.
The waves stank of corruption. Sparks flared from the surf, annihilating anything they touched.
With each swell, visions of doom emerged—worlds breaking, stars consumed, mankind shattered.
Horus turned to flee—
And then he saw it.
A figure cast ashore by the tides of decay.
Burned. Broken. Bald.
Yet unmistakable.
Golden runes shimmered faintly on his flesh.
"…Lorgar?" Horus gasped, disbelieving. He knelt, turned the body over, and stared into the charred face of his brother.
Yes. It was Lorgar Aurelian, the Prophet of the Word.
Their bond had never been close. Lorgar's faith had once divided them.
But here, even seeing a brother was a flicker of hope in a sea of despair.
Was this too a lie? A conjuration of torment?
Could Lorgar be trusted—not again, but at all?
"Horus...?"
Lorgar's voice was hoarse, like dry parchment tearing.
His gaze lit with emotion as he embraced Horus, the warmth genuine enough to unsettle the former Warmaster.
"I came here for you, brother," Lorgar whispered. "The end draws near. Humanity needs you. Only you can stop what's coming..."
His voice still sounded like a preacher, a zealot cloaked in riddles and revelations.
Horus did not know whether to feel reassured… or alarmed.
Although Lorgar's tone carried an earnest sincerity, something about it still unsettled Horus.
"You say you're here to help me?" Horus asked again, his voice low and cautious.
"Brother, there is no time for lengthy explanations."
Lorgar rose unsteadily from the blackened shore, his eyes fixed on the turbulent, stinking ocean of annihilation.
"We must act. Now."
"What do you mean?"
Horus's confusion deepened. He shook his head, his mind fogged, as though something important had been torn from his memory. Try as he might, he couldn't recall what was missing.
"The sun will soon rise from the Black Ocean," Lorgar warned, his voice tense. "Once it does, you will be trapped here forever. The path back to the Materium will be lost."
Those words snapped something into place. Horus's eyes sharpened, and his voice grew heavy with authority.
"So this is not the real universe?"
"No," Lorgar replied, almost pleading now. "This is the realm of Hades—the void between life and death, a place of spiritual exile. You cannot navigate your way out alone. Only I can lead you back."
He looked around, as if expecting the shadows themselves to rise against them.
"My brother, we must leave. We don't have much time."
Horus didn't yet understand Lorgar's cryptic language. The Word Bearer had always been a preacher cloaked in riddles, his truths buried beneath layers of prophecy and metaphor. And now—why would the sun stop me from returning?—the logic still evaded him.
But despite everything, Horus's battle-hardened instincts told him one thing clearly: Lorgar wasn't lying.
"What do we have to do to return to the Materium?"
"Come with me," Lorgar urged.
And so Horus followed.
They marched across shattered ruins and the bones of broken civilizations, the ground beneath them cracked and scorched. Every step echoed with lost glory.
Suddenly, faintly, Horus heard it—a rough voice laced with fury and desperation.
"Fething idiot! You want to go back? You think you can just walk away from this?"
The voice was shouting, trying to reach him from beyond the veil.
"You think you're ready for rebellion again? Don't! Return to me. Come back before it's too late!"
It was familiar. Wrathful, bitter—laced with grief. Whoever it was, Horus had once known this man. Well.
But when he strained to hear more, the voice was smothered. A heavy silence settled over it, as if something—many things—were conspiring to block it from reaching him.
"Did you hear that?" Horus asked, frowning. "A voice… it was familiar, but I couldn't tell who it was."
"I heard it," Lorgar admitted. "But ignore it. It's the call of the damned—those who were cursed and left behind. If you respond, if you listen too closely, you will never leave this place."
He turned to face his brother and asked solemnly, "Tell me, Horus… would you allow yourself to be chained here forever? Even if it meant abandoning everything you once believed in?"
Horus was silent for a long moment, then shook his head.
No.
He still had purpose. Still had ambition. He had not come this far to die in the ruins of a forgotten hell.