Warp Daemon

"Traitor, your thoughts are as stupid as your brain. What gave you the confidence to show yourself before me?" Guilliman said to the leader of the rebels. "You could have crawled back into that revolting Warp before I arrived, but you did not. I have to admire your courage, though I also suspect that after all these long years, your brain has completely rotted away. After all, there are not many intact pieces left on you."

"You are arrogant, Primarch." Gurlo's face darkened.

It had never imagined that a Primarch could say something like that.

"If you were facing a pile of trash, you would become arrogant without meaning to. If nothing your enemies did could change their miserable fate, then why would you have any reason not to be arrogant?"

Guilliman's tone was mocking. His voice rang across the battlefield, drawing cheers from the Imperium's soldiers.

"You... you will pay the price, Primarch." Gurlo's sickly green face turned a deep, inky green. Clearly, Guilliman's words had enraged it.

Anyone would be furious after being called trash, even if the one saying it was a Primarch.

"I hope you have the ability to make me pay that price. Unfortunately, you do not."

At Guilliman's words, Gurlo was left speechless.

It had never seen such an overbearing Primarch.

Guilliman paid no heed to Gurlo's fury. The soul within him was not merely that of the Emperor's Thirteenth Son from the past; it had also merged with the knowledge and memories of another soul. The two had combined to create an entirely new Guilliman, one with an entirely new personality.

When it came to taunting people, even the Chaos Gods would not be his match.

"I hope your strength is as formidable as your tongue, Primarch."

Gurlo looked toward its adjutant. The bloated head beneath the other's helmet nodded. Everything was ready.

"You shall face the power of the Warp. Tremble before it!" Gurlo roared.

The earth began to shake for no apparent reason.

The air rang with the sound of shattering glass.

Filthy radiance poured from the cracks, carrying the utmost malice. Everyone could feel a will that utterly hated everything in the real world trying to break through its restraints and enter reality.

Crack. Crack.

Reality itself shattered like broken glass, and the light of the Empyrean spilled forth like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

The nearby Imperial Psykers could feel their powers strengthening considerably. The Veil between the Warp and reality had been torn apart, and they too benefited from it.

Of course, such benefits were fraught with danger.

If a Psyker failed to retain their sanity, they would fall under the Warp's corruption and become one of those loathsome monsters.

A bloated, rotting head covered in pustules and tiny tentacles, crowned with a pair of enormous horns, squeezed out from the Warp.

The Daemon was nearly ten meters tall and immensely fat, wielding a rusted greatblade.

Pus-filled boils covered its bloated body, oozing slime as plague flies and Nurglings constantly crawled out from within.

After crawling out, the Daemon let out a thunderous roar. Through its gaping mouth, Guilliman could see countless maggots writhing and crawling inside.

What a disgusting Daemon.

Daemons.

The eternal enemies of the Imperium, the eternal enemies of humanity—Warp-born entities formed from unnatural energies and granted awareness by the Dark Gods.

Daemons could not be killed. The bodies they used in the physical universe were merely projections; their true forms remained in the Warp.

Once slain, they returned to the Warp and waited to be reborn.

Only a handful of weapons, or certain terrifying Psykers, could destroy a Daemon completely.

The Emperor's Sword in Guilliman's hand naturally possessed the power to annihilate Daemons.

Shortly after his resurrection, he had used that sword to kill a traitor favored by Khorne and elevated to daemonhood.

The origins of Warp Daemons were complicated. Most were shaped by the Chaos Gods.

Others were formed from the particular worship of various races or certain special emotions.

For example, humanity's curse—the only being in the Warp capable of killing the Emperor—the Daemon known as End of the Empire.

End of the Empire had grievously wounded the Emperor during the Webway War, accelerating humanity's defeat in that conflict.

That battle against End of the Empire had been the most disadvantageous of all the countless battles the Emperor had experienced throughout His long life.

The Emperor had been utterly overwhelmed by End of the Empire. After only a few exchanges, He had been covered in wounds. In the end, He used a loyal Adeptus Custodes to seal that dreadful Daemon, sending the Custodian away from the Webway with the sealed Daemon inside his body.

It was because of End of the Empire that, in the final battle that followed, the Emperor was grievously wounded by Horus, who had been empowered by the Dark Gods, and was forced to enter the Golden Throne.

The Webway War, End of the Empire, and the maintenance of Terra's Veil of Reality had all drained the Emperor, leaving Him unable to withstand the combined assault of the Four Gods.

Fortunately, before Sanguinius was tortured to death by Horus, he used all his strength to leave a gap in Horus's armor.

Only then had the Emperor been able to kill Horus through that gap, with the help of His first Warmaster—Ollanius.

Aside from End of the Empire, which had nearly changed the outcome of the Horus Heresy, there was also Samus, the Daemon that had grievously damaged the Imperial Fists' Phalanx during the Solar War and nearly killed the Loyalist Loken. It too was a Warp Daemon unaffiliated with the Four Gods.

Loken had once been one of Horus's subordinates and a member of the Mournival. On Istvaan III, because he refused to betray the Emperor and humanity's lofty dream of transcendence, Horus marked him for purging. With the surviving Loyalist warriors, he resisted the attacks of another traitorous Primarch, Angron, on Istvaan III for several months despite being isolated and without support, delaying the progress of the Horus Heresy.

The Loyalists who had descended to the surface all died in the orbital bombardment launched by Horus. Only he survived.

By Horus's command, Samus hunted this rebellious son in order to demonstrate to the other allies Horus's determination to replace the Emperor, declaring his supreme authority through Loken's death and showing the consequences of defying him.

To protect Loken, Mersadie, a dreamer who had joined the expeditionary fleet in hopes of preserving an intact history for humanity, chose to sacrifice herself and banished Samus.

Besides those two, there were many Warp Daemons unaffiliated with the Chaos Gods, such as Be'lakor. They formed their own factions, usually fighting one another or serving one of the Chaos Gods, slaughtering enemies upon the Eternal Battlefield.

Yet whenever the Chaos Gods invaded the real world, they joined forces with them to harvest humanity's fear, emotions, and souls.

The Daemon summoned by the Plague Warriors belonged to their faction: a Plague Demon, also known as a Nurgle Demon.

These Daemons served the Dark God Nurgle, seeking to spread plague into the real world.

"A Primarch?"

The Nurgle Demon that entered the battlefield immediately spotted Guilliman, who held the Emperor's Sword.

"A disgusting Daemon." Guilliman, still trying to break through the traitors' final line of defense, looked coldly at the Daemon crawling out of the Warp.

"Perhaps the unhappy Mortarion needs a family member." The Plague Demon smiled at Guilliman. "I can take you back. That way, Mortarion will be happy."

"That idiotic traitor needs a pyre even more, and so do you, Daemon. You still have a chance to crawl back where you came from. Otherwise, I will burn you to death myself." Guilliman spoke without courtesy, suddenly raising the Emperor's Sword and cutting down the last Plague Warrior blocking his path before striding toward the Daemon.