The survivors gathered in the flickering gloom of the Blackstone chamber, the air thick with the mingled scents of blood, burnt ozone, and promethium. The battered remnants of the force — Astartes, Guardsmen, Shinobi, Eldar, and Grey Knights — steeled themselves for what might be their final passage.
Bolter magazines were reloaded with scavenged rounds. Combat blades hastily sharpened. Shinobi mended cracked exosuits, replaced power cells, swapped depleted rail cartridges. Stretchers were fashioned from banners, plasma shielding, and broken spears — crude, but serviceable.
Guilliman's eyes flicked to his ammo dispenser: 147 rounds remaining. His jaw clenched.
An Imperial Guard officer approached, grime-smeared and hollow-eyed, gesturing toward a dying soldier writhing in agony.
"Lord Primarch," the officer rasped, "Requesting the Emperor's mercy for this man. He won't make the march."
Guilliman's expression darkened, voice flat and cold.
"No."
The officer hesitated. "But—"
"He endures. Or he dies fighting. Not one more soul for the warp today."
The officer saluted stiffly and withdrew, shame and grim resolve mingling in his gaze.
At Seiji's command, the surviving Battle Shinobi gathered, some pairing up to lift stretchered wounded — human, Eldar, even battered Astartes.
"Keep moving," Seiji ordered his shinobi. "We move with the Imperials. You fall behind, you don't come back."
The portal — a vast, shimmering tear in reality — awaited them. The air around it pulsed with raw psychic force, azure light rippling with eerie menace.
The Grey Knights moved first, Grand Master Voldrus raising his Nemesis sword high.
"For the Emperor," he intoned, stepping through.
The Grey Knight 3rd Brotherhood would take point.
One by one, the others followed until the chamber lay empty.
The realm beyond was no place for mortal sanity — a corridor of radiant void, its walls formed of shifting light and impossible geometries. Streaks of distant constellations bent and twisted. The floor a path of obsidian glass reflecting endless galaxies.
Every step felt both heavy and unmoored, as though time itself had lost track of them.
"I've… never seen…" murmured a Guardsman, voice barely audible.
A haggard Navy officer groaned.
"Emperor's blood… how far is this cursed path? Feels like we've marched a whole sector."
Murmurs rippled among the battered ranks.
"keep moving!" an Ultramarine barked. "Eyes front. This isn't a sight-seeing tour."
A Salamanders Astartes clapped a hand on the Navy officer's shoulder.
"You'll see Terra when we reach it. Keep up the pace brave corpsmen."
Seiji, walking beside Naon watches the interaction. Noting how the imperial social structures forms firsthand.
Then, like mist curling through the void, Sylandri Veilwalker drifted alongside, her porcelain mask catching the warplight.
"Time has no spine here, little blades," she sang. "The thread loops, tangles, forgets itself. You march forever… or arrive in a heartbeat. The path chooses. Not you."
Seiji shot her a sharp glare beneath his mask.
"Tch. I'll take solid ground and clean kills over riddles, xenos."
She laughed, a soft, glass-chime sound.
"How dull fate would be then."
Up front the formation, Guilliman's scowl deepened. Every fiber of his being prickled with warning.
He feels a gnawing feeling that they are walking unto a trap.
As the ultramar's lord mulled over, the warp corridor convulsed, its walls rippling. Pathways split like ruptured veins.
Warpfire bloomed ahead.
Then a presence.
A towering figure coalesced, crimson and vast, his cyclopean eye aflame.
Magnus the red.
"Ah, my dear brother," the traitor's voice thundered, echoing between dimensions. "Still running from truths you refuse to see."
With him, the Thousand Sons — Sorcerers and Rubric Marines, their cerulean armor shining with sorcerous light — advanced like a tide.
Guilliman's jaw clenched, never looking away from the red giant.
"Voldrus. Can we break through?"
"Unwise," the Grand Master admitted tightly. "We are too few and our strength is depleted."
A Grey Knight pointed to a shimmering side-path, a dozen meters away.
"There. A secondary corridor."
It gaped wide. Fewer enemies block their path.
'This could lead us to salvation…or death.' Gulliman thoughts as many scenarios appear in his strategic mind.
Knowing time is of the essence, Guilliman decided in a heartbeat.
"Do it. Sound the retreat. We're not dying here."
"Form up!" Voldrus shouted. "Retreat pattern, layered formation!"
Grey Knights formed a shield wall of ceramite and psychic barriers.
With a hand gesture from Seiji, some squads of shinobi fanned out in a second line, monoblades flashing, railguns covering flanks.
All other forces turn to follow the Primarch of ultramarine.
"Then let us carve the path through nightmare's teeth, Lord of Ultramar — and leave you a road to salvation."
Harlequins darted ahead, blades humming.
"All units! Protect the wounded!" Seiji barked order as he follows the harlequin with his remaining free battle shinobi.
"Naon, Shinji — staggered retreat formation!"
Naon's teeth bared behind her mask, eyes burning.
"I'll gut one of that cyclops bastard before our mission is over."
"I'll hold you to that madam" Shinji growled.
Looking at his retreating brother, Magnus raised his staff, crimson power swirling.
"You cannot escape me, Roboute."
Guilliman turn meeting his brother's gaze.
"I've no time for your sermons, Magnus. Be gone."
Harlequins and Shinobi cut a path. Bolters roared. Psychic wards flared.
Behind them, Grey Knights and a knot of Shinobi formed a desperate rear guard, fighting inch by inch. Magnus hurled seething warp blasts. Thousand Sons surged.
But a breach in the corridor formed — a chasm of unreality, a vast wound of writhing void. Magnus's forces were forced to circle wide along unstable routes.
It bought them minutes.
The Grey Knights, battered but unbroken, fell back and rejoined the main force, reeling but alive.
Still, the pursuers closed.
An Astartes captain halted, blade planting into the obsidian floor.
"Someone holds them here. Buy them time to open that gate."
"I'll lead a detachment, any volunteer?" he growled.
Guilliman met his gaze, face like stone.
"See it done."
A few platoons worth of Guardsmen, scattered Astartes, and chunin Jordan leading some of his squad and other battered Shinobi stepped forward.
The rest pressed on.
Grand Master Voldrus snarled, feeling shame as he retreated. But duty demanded it — his Grey Knights alone could breach the portal.
Ahead — a dormant portal.
Grey Knights sprang into position, chanting ancient rites. Voldrus' voice rose in harmonic invocation. Runes ignited in sickly light.
The other looks on nervously as the grey knight done their secret ritual.
The portal shimmered — and flared open.
"Move!" Guilliman commanded, overseeing the evacuation.
Astartes, Guardsmen, Shinobi, Harlequins fled through it.
Guilliman hesitated at the threshold, cold unease clawing at him.
Too easy. Too soon.
Was this truly fortune — or a trap laid by Magnus himself?
He turned to his Honor Guard, eyes grim.
"We escape. But stay ready."
And with that, they stepped into the unknown.