When Have You Ever Known Humanity to Keep Its Promises?

In Guilliman's original strategic plan,

the scale of the Dragon Forest Star campaign had to be kept within manageable bounds. In other words, they absolutely could not bring in any more factions. The conflict had to remain focused on one Chaos God, instead of escalating until the other three joined in.

So after killing the Chaos Marshal, they would have to control the pace, lest the Chaos Legions suffer too many casualties and bring the other three Gods into the war prematurely.

As for a Chaos Marshal, he was certainly important—but from the perspective of the bigger picture, the Four Gods could simply choose another "Chaos Marshal."

Abaddon had misjudged one thing.

He had misjudged how important he was to the Four Gods. He was merely a pawn, yet he was always thinking about how to break free of their control. In that regard, Abaddon's death was well deserved.

The Chaos Marshal?

They could just pick another one.

Four-legged toads were hard to find, but two-legged Chaos Marshals were everywhere, weren't they?

And so, through an unspoken understanding between Guilliman and the Four Gods, the scale of the Dragon Forest Star campaign was jointly set.

It wasn't just Guilliman. Of the Four Gods, all but Khorne were reluctant to be dragged into the quagmire of war too soon.

And that was how things had ended up like this.

Khorne had gone all in—and lost everything. He hadn't gotten Alvin, and had even lost a Daemon Prince and a Daemon Primarch.

Resurrecting and reforging a Daemon Primarch required enormous amounts of Warp energy and time. As a result, Khorne's power and influence would remain dormant for a long time.

The other three Gods were quite happy to see that.

Though the Four Gods of Chaos put on a united front, in