The Grim Reaper Also Has Tenderness

Perturabo forcefully banished Khorne's whispers with an iron will. As the crimson energy remaining in the command center had yet to fully dissipate, the heavy Orichalcum door of the command room slowly opened with a low hydraulic hum, bypassing the usual request protocols.

Two figures clad in dazzling golden Power Armor stepped into the room. Intricate Terra runes were carved onto their armor, and their figures were tall and imposing.

Even the Astartes in Power Armor appeared slightly shorter in their presence. The crimson lenses of their helmets were as sharp as an eagle's, and the halberds they held in their hands were both symbols of honor and deadly weapons.

The visitors were none other than the Emperor's Adeptus Custodes. They needed no introduction, for they represented the Emperor's own will and had the right to go anywhere within the Imperium and meet anyone, including a Primarch.

Nominally they were the Primarch's "honor guard," but everyone knew they were the Emperor's "overseers."

The lead Custodian's steps were steady. He stopped at an appropriate distance from the Iron Throne, showing basic courtesy to the Primarch while maintaining an inviolable majesty.

He wasted no words, directly issuing the command in a clear, resonant voice devoid of any personal emotion:

"Lord Perturabo. By order of Our Lord and the War Council."

"The Blood Angels Legion's 38th Expeditionary Fleet encountered a powerful Xenos, the 'Rak'l Xenos,' at the edge of the Great Vortex in the Extreme Sector, suffering heavy losses with their commander slain.

This Xenos threat has surpassed their ability to cope. Given the Iron Warriors Legion's exceptional efficiency in siege warfare and systematic warfare, the War Council has decreed that your forces are to immediately proceed to relieve them, eliminate the threat, and ensure this sector returns to the Imperium's embrace."

The content of the command was consistent with what the Iron Warriors had received, but hearing it read aloud by the Custodes carried a completely different weight and compulsion.

This was no longer a distant communication, but a direct, unavoidable decree.

Perturabo sat enthroned, his iron-grey Power Armor appearing exceptionally cold in the dim light.

His lenses obscured his gaze, but the metallic knuckles gripping the armrests of his throne betrayed the turmoil within him.

"It's like this again."

Like summoning a tool, they were casting him and his Legion into the most dangerous crucible. "Exceptional efficiency"—the phrase now sounded like a cruel mockery of his and his sons' fate.

The blood and sacrifices they had made, in the eyes of Terra, seemed merely quantifiable "efficient" costs to achieve strategic objectives.

Khorne's whispers seemed to echo in his ears again, laced with mockery: "Look, you are still the hammer that comes whenever it's called!"

A fire mixed with humiliation, rage, and extreme unwillingness burned in his chest.

The Lord of Iron could almost hear the snapping of the thread of his sanity. He wanted to stand up, face these golden emissaries, and unleash a hundred years of pent-up questions and roars.

But... he couldn't, not yet!

At this moment, he had already made up his mind!

His gaze swept over the two Custodes standing still as statues. He wished he could tear these emissaries of the Emperor apart with his bare hands, but he didn't. His Legion was not yet fully prepared, and his strength was not yet sufficient.

Open defiance at this moment would be tantamount to self-destruction.

A deeper, darker resolve rapidly took shape amidst this extreme suppression. Since he could not refuse, he would use it.

He slowly released the fingers gripping the armrest. His voice came through the speakers, steady, calm, even carrying a hint of programmed obedience:

"The Iron Warriors will complete the War Council's orders."

He offered no further words, no emotional display. His simple response caused the two Custodes to nod slightly; their mission was complete.

They bowed again, then turned and departed as silently and majestically as they had arrived. The heavy blast doors closed behind them.

The command center was once again left with only Perturabo, a few on-duty Tridents, and the cold Iron Circle Automata.

Silence persisted for several minutes.

Then, Perturabo stood up abruptly, his massive figure casting a particularly imposing shadow in the light cast by the star map. He didn't look at anyone, as if talking to himself, or perhaps proclaiming a new era to the entire Legion:

"Transmit an order to the entire army: Target the Great Vortex in the Extreme Sector, the Sulys system. We will establish our new home here."

He paused, and the following command clearly indicated his inner rebellion:

"Concurrently, the Legion will implement a new conscription act: effective immediately, for any world conquered by the Legion's military might, regardless of its allegiance or original structure, all lifeforms meeting the criteria will be subject to mandatory conscription.

Soldiers, laborers, tech-thralls... we need all resources.

Olympia is no longer, and will never again be, our sole source."

He turned, the cold light of his lenses sweeping over his sons.

"We bleed for the Imperium, and the Imperium treats us as tools. Then, we shall use the Imperium's wars to forge a strength that belongs only to us. Execute."

This time, he accepted the Imperium's command, but planted the seeds of rebellion within his actions.

He was no longer fixated on past glories or singular loyalty. He would use every campaign, like a greedy Great Beast, to devour everything in his path, arming himself until the day when no one—neither the Emperor nor that bastard hiding in the Warp—could treat him as a mere tool to be used at will.

The Lord of Iron quietly forged his blade of defiance in the darkness. The seeds of rebellion had been sown, awaiting only a spark from Mars to ignite them.

In the Sacrificial Blood Domain of the Warp, atop a brass throne piled high with countless skulls, the ferocious beast-head of the god of blood and slaughter tilted slightly.

An unprecedented shock, like a boulder dropped into a sea of blood, stirred ripples within His consciousness, composed of pure rage and destructive desire.

Refusal?

A mortal, one who had just personally slaughtered his own homeworld, choked the life out of his closest kin, his soul soaked in boundless rage and pain—and he refused Him?

Refused this "grace" personally bestowed by the Lord of Skulls, leading to ultimate power and destruction!!

Khorne's astonishment stemmed not from being offended, but from an extremely rare "unexpected event."

He could taste the pure, unadulterated rage within Perturabo's soul, a resentment potent enough to ignite galaxies, a dark impulse born from betrayal by all existence, a desire to tear everything apart.

This should have been the most perfect offering to Him, a sweet spring destined to flow into the sea of blood.

However, instead of forging Perturabo into a kneeling servant, this rage had instead forged an axe of defiance against His will? This contradictory yet powerful soul brought a novel sensation to Khorne, who was accustomed to kneeling and begging.

"You cannot escape my grasp..." Khorne, seated upon His brass throne, bared His fangs as He watched the direction Perturabo had disappeared.

He had finally found a sliver of amusement in the eternal boredom of the Warp.

Yes, boredom.

Amidst the eternal blood wars, the endless slaughter and sacrifices repeated by countless daemons, it had been too long, far too long, since such... interesting resistance had appeared.

Souls that easily knelt provided nourishment, but offered no enjoyment.

Those mortals who madly embraced Him were merely beasts obeying their instincts.

But Perturabo was different.

His rage was so intense, yet his will was so stubborn.

He was like an unseen, unbreakable metal, which, instead of melting in the Blood God's furnace, had instead let out a defiant clang.

"Very good..." A silent roar echoed between the sea of blood and the mountains of skulls, not of anger, but of the excitement of discovering a worthy quarry to pursue with all his might.

The brass throne trembled slightly with His will, and the Kubikiribōchō and the bloody great axe beside the throne hummed with a thirst for blood.

This Primarch, Perturabo, He would have him.

Khorne did not merely intend to use simple whispers and temptations, but to utterly "crush" his laughable pride, "break" his stubborn will, and force him to witness firsthand how fragile everything he held dear was in the face of absolute power.

Ultimately, He would make him willingly kneel before this brass throne, bringing his unique rage and power, to become the most powerful and deadly War Hound under His command.

Khorne's inhuman eyes, burning with eternal warfire, pierced through dimensions once more, firmly locking onto the direction of the "Iron Fist."

This time, His gaze held not just scrutiny, but a cruel playfulness akin to a cat toying with a mouse, and an undeniable possessiveness.

Khorne had set His sights on Perturabo.

This hunt had only just begun.

"As expected, if you're sick, you need medicine, but some conditions can't be cured even with medicine." Sandman looked coldly at Perturabo's rampage on Olympia, watching as Perturabo, who called himself the Lord of Iron but was actually a pile of scrap metal, personally strangled his adoptive sister.

It could be said that the planet Perturabo landed on was one of the few that could compare to Macragge. Damiex, his two sons, and Ketherfen had all treated Perturabo very well, but it ended in such a way. Therefore, it was destined that some people could be saved, while others were simply beyond saving.

Sandman felt no pity for Perturabo, this ultimate man-child, twisted to the extreme. Destruction was his only path.

"Sleep, your sacrifice was not in vain," Sandman whispered to the Olympians who had died at the hands of the Iron Warriors.

Since Sandman, as the Major God of Humanity, had not intervened and allowed these people to die under Perturabo's brutality, he would naturally compensate them in another way.

The souls of Ketherfen and other Olympian mortals were collected by him and nurtured in the Hall of Heroes within his divine realm.

The God of Death also had a gentle side.

"Speaking of which, these Chaos Gods are truly shameless, bullying the weak and personally corrupting these Primarchs," Sandman said, looking through the smoke-filled sky of Olympia at the crimson tide receding from the Iron Fist like a tide.

Whether in the background or in this timeline, Nurgle himself had made Mortarion submit, Khorne had personally intervened for Dorn, Slaanesh coveted Sanguinius, and Tzeentch had been scouring the Warp for Magnus.

Fulgrim seemed to be the easiest, corrupted by a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh hidden in a daemonic sword, and he even personally decapitated his good friend, completely falling into Slaanesh's embrace.

"With things as they are, we can only wait for Nurgle's next move," Sandman said, looking towards the last known location of the Son of Horus in the war report.

That area remained as dark as ever, and he could not capture any useful information.

Five years, a mere blink of an eye on a galactic scale, but for the Imperium of Man, it was a long enough period for latent threats to fester into poisonous sores.

From the perspective of the Warp, the Primarchs had completely disappeared from Sandman's and the Emperor's senses. First Horus, then Angron, Mortarion, and then Fulgrim... until Perturabo five years ago, his soul burning fiercely in rage and pain, yet still carrying a flicker of stubborn self-possession, was finally engulfed by the surging Chaos gloom.

"The last connection... is also severed," Sandman's voice echoed through the waves of the Warp, tinged with solemnity. At this moment, he and the Emperor were like blind giants, their once galaxy-spanning vision obscured by a dense fog.

"Now, we can only rely on realspace communications to deal with the challenges of the Chaos Gods," Sandman said to the Emperor.

The Emperor remained silent. Their enemy had already sounded the horn of attack.

"Perturabo has halted his Legion in the Maelstrom region, plundering troops and wealth from planets around the Maelstrom, and has fortified the Illius system into a heavily defended fortress system," the Emperor said, pointing a finger to indicate Perturabo's location.

"Undoubtedly, this is the Chaos Gods influencing Perturabo's mind," Sandman said, connecting Olympia, the Illius system, and Prospero, forming a triangle.

"With the Eye of Terror blockaded by Ferrus's Iron Hands Legion, the Maelstrom has become the last retreat for these pawns of the Chaos Gods," the Emperor said.

Even with the combined might of the Chaos Gods, they could not tear open a Warp rift in realspace large enough for Legion fleets to pass through for an extended period. Even ten thousand years in the background, Chaos warbands' warships entered realspace through the Eye of Terror, the Maelstrom, and Mandeville Point.

Although the Cadian Gate prevented large-scale invasions by these Imperial traitors, the Imperium was under immense pressure from these scattered traitors. Both the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom were too vast to be completely sealed off.

"This means the Great Heresy will most likely be confined to the Maelstrom area. The Chaos Gods have likely abandoned the idea of their rebel Legions reaching Terra, but I hope you won't have to sit on the Golden Throne this time," Sandman said, looking at the Emperor with a hint of amusement.

The Emperor seemed to be quite unlucky, as in every timeline, his connection to the Golden Throne was incredibly strong.

"It's hard to say. They have four, and we only have two. We cannot afford to be careless," the Emperor was not optimistic.

Would the Chaos Gods be satisfied with simply taking their investments and Legions? What about the negative emotions generated by the slaughter unleashed by the rebel Legions?

This was a universe where thought held power. Would they give up such a massive cake?

Clearly, this was impossible, especially now that Humanity had birthed a God of Death. It was harder for the Chaos Gods to acquire human souls than before. The fastest way for them to obtain souls was through war.

This is also why the Warhammer universe has been in a state of war ever since the fall of the Ling Clan.

War can catalyze the various negative emotional energies and vast souls they need to the greatest extent.

To return to their previous way of life, which relied on the natural deaths of intelligent life and the negative emotions emanating from daily life, would be akin to forcing someone accustomed to feasting on meat and fish every day to suddenly revert to a bland diet.

It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but difficult to go from luxury to frugality, and even the Chaos Gods cannot escape this.

"In short, keeping a close eye on the Maelstrom area is always the right move. The Chaos Gods won't be able to hold out for too long. Once this window of opportunity passes, they'll be the ones suffering," Sandman said with great confidence.

After all, the material universe is their home turf. With the Emperor, the ceiling of combat power in the material universe, there is no one who can contend with them.

Just as the fortunes of the human race rise and fall, so too do the fortunes of the Chaos Gods. Especially when they lack effective means to interfere with the material universe, in such circumstances, the Chaos Gods will be even more pressed for time than the Emperor and his allies.

This might be the first time the Chaos Gods have felt that time, something that was originally insignificant to them, has suddenly become a pressing concern.