Magnus's Threat

"Betrayal—isn't that you Daemons' specialty?" Guilliman said.

"You will not deceive and control me so easily, son of the Anathema."

Cherubael screamed.

Guilliman showed no mercy. He smashed his fist into the other's body again, sending him crashing into the wall with a shrill cry.

Then, with one stroke of his sword, he severed one of Cherubael's arms.

The Anathema's power was harming Cherubael's Daemonic essence. Like a burning scar, it tormented him without respite.

Just as Guilliman was about to leave more wounds upon him,

Cherubael yielded. He screamed in terror, "My master."

Under Guilliman's gaze, Cherubael revealed the true name of a Daemon that might know the Warp's current state.

He also provided a spell to imprison it.

In exchange for Guilliman's forgiveness.

Over the long years, Cherubael, as a Daemon Prince, had always managed to acquire useful information.

A Daemon's true name was not something unimaginable to him.

"Not entirely foolish." Guilliman withdrew the Emperor's Sword and turned toward Eisenhorn. "Can you summon the Daemon he mentioned, Inquisitor?"

"With its complete true name and the ritual, it will not be difficult," Eisenhorn said.

For a Daemon Inquisitor, knowledge concerning Daemons was a required field of study.

With Eisenhorn's help, a Daemon that likewise did not belong to the Chaos Gods was summoned.

A chill filled the air, accompanied by a nauseating stench of sulfur.

A hideous Daemon with two horns, black feathers covering its body, and cloven hooves was summoned.

Before the Daemon could speak, Eisenhorn used the ritual to bind it within a Daemonhost.

"Mortal, you have angered me," the summoned Daemon shrieked.

"You talk too much." Guilliman seized its head and slammed it into the ground.

The Daemon screamed.

As it screamed, terrifying disturbances arose in the Warp, attempting to erase everyone in the dungeon.

But Guilliman did not let it succeed.

The power of a Primarch was so terrifying that it could tear even a Titan apart.

The Daemon was crushed beneath Guilliman's Dominion Power and the Emperor's Power, while Guilliman used the Emperor's Sword to carve humiliating words into its body.

Faced with a Primarch it could not defeat, one capable of ending it completely, the Daemon yielded.

"Ask, son of the Anathema. I can answer five of your questions. Whatever I know, I shall tell you."

The summoned Daemon spoke in a shrill voice.

It spoke with layered voices, black tears of pain streaming down its face.

Human enslavement and the Emperor's Power inflicted a double torment upon it.

"Tell me, where are my traitorous brothers?" Guilliman asked.

"Lorgar, Perturabo, and Fulgrim are in the Eye of Terror," the Daemon said. "Mortarion is in the domain of the Lord of Decay, while Angron fights for the Lord of War and Blood on the Eternal Battlefield."

"What about Magnus?" Guilliman sharply asked about the most insidious of the traitor Primarchs.

"He has left the Eye of Terror. No one knows where he is. It is said that he intends to strike at his brother—that is you, son of the Anathema. You are the only active son of the Anathema left." The Daemon panted, driven mad and convulsing from immense pain.

Guilliman fell silent.

Mortarion had yet to act, and Magnus was already coming?

What would he do? Throw him into the Maelstrom like in the original plotline?

"How do I control it?" Guilliman looked at the bound Cherubael and asked in a deep voice.

"Carve the scriptures of the Anathema upon his heart, and he will submit at your feet and serve you."

"No." The Daemon let out a shrill cry.

"Is he telling the truth?" Guilliman asked inwardly.

[True. Your father's prayers may kill that Daemon. Only your will can spare it from death. If it does not wish for eternal oblivion, it can only submit at your feet.]

After receiving the Assistant Spirit's answer, Guilliman questioned Eisenhorn as well. Once he confirmed there would be no problem, he began.

He tore open the Daemon's chest and carved verses praising the Emperor from the Ecclesiarchy onto the place where its heart lay.

"I need more intelligence, Daemon. Do not disappoint me, or you will return to oblivion forever."

With that, Guilliman sent it back into the Warp.

"Seal him away and send him aboard Macragge's Honour. I need more information about the Warp from him. Eisenhorn, you will guard him. If necessary, kill him."

Guilliman looked at Eisenhorn and gave him his instructions regarding Cherubael.

Guilliman remained on Thalassa for two weeks. Then he departed with Eisenhorn and the golden coffin containing Cherubael, preparing to head for the Konor System.

Before leaving, he declared Covenant to be Grand Inquisitor, responsible for reviewing the plans of all Inquisitors. Covenant had the authority to demand that they account for their actions; otherwise, Covenant would be qualified to suspend them from all duties.

Covenant answered directly to him and was to report all information regularly for the Primarch's review.

Guilliman knew that the Inquisitors had made many contributions over the long millennia and thwarted countless conspiracies.

But as the years passed, the immensely powerful Inquisitors had gradually begun to decay.

They used every method to seize enormous wealth, conducted all manner of heretical acts in secret, and even deliberately cultivated heretics before destroying them to gain glory and greater power for themselves.

A principled Daemon Inquisitor like Eisenhorn had instead become an oddity.

After reorganizing the Inquisition's chaotic oversight system and incorporating it into his reform plans, Guilliman departed.

The flaws in the Inquisition's system had accumulated for a long time. They could not be purged overnight, nor could everything be changed in one sweeping stroke, lest the Imperium bleed too heavily.

It had to be done gradually, corrected through new institutions and new ideas.

Standing on the deck of Macragge's Honour,

Guilliman considered the road ahead.

Mortarion and Magnus would strike at him. He had to prepare suitable countermeasures.

Magnus excelled at psychic power. That was his only advantage.

There was no need to mention his schemes. His supposedly unfathomable brilliance relied entirely on the information imbalance between the Warp and the material universe.

To put it bluntly, the man was somewhat clever, but not by much.

Magnus's threat lay in his psychic power and the imbalance of Warp information.

Like in the original plot, he might strike the moment Guilliman had just emerged from the Warp and suddenly throw them into the Maelstrom.

Who could endure something like that?

Guilliman did not know when that fellow would launch his attack. Otherwise, he could have made some plans.

As for Mortarion, he was less troublesome.

Other than spreading plagues, that fool could not think of any other tricks.

Plagues could not achieve a sudden attack, which gave Guilliman time to respond.

Magnus was the only real problem.

"There is far too little information." Guilliman sighed. Humanity had always been at a disadvantage in its struggle against the Warp.

And the greatest problem in fighting the Warp was the fear of corruption.

The most disgusting thing about the Warp was this:

If you did not fight, you suffered losses.

If you fought, you still suffered losses.

Corruption alone was practically impossible to solve.

"Resume the Webway Project?" Guilliman wondered.

The Emperor had basically tried every usable method.

Establish a collective consciousness for all humanity? Wasn't the Emperor that already?

Establish a new religion to resist it? Wasn't that the Ecclesiarchy already?

The only remaining option was to build the Webway and isolate humanity from the Warp, a plan that had never been fully implemented.

After considering it for a moment, Guilliman rejected the idea.

The Chaos Gods would not allow him to do that. The moment he showed any intention of rebuilding the Webway, they would immediately join forces.

If he lost, would he have to sit upon the Golden Throne? If he did not, a second Eye of Terror would erupt, and then the whole world would belong to Daemons.

Learn from StarCraft's Protoss and establish the so-called Khala connection.

Forget it. If one person became corrupted, everyone would be dragged down.

The Khala connection was not reliable either. It was infiltrated later on and nearly allowed the entire Protoss race to be controlled.

If humanity tried it, their deaths would be even more miserable.

No matter how Guilliman thought about it, he could not find a good way to resist the Warp's corruption.

At that moment, Phicris walked over.

"My lord, the latest news. House Glaus of the Natal System has issued a declaration, claiming that your reforms to the Imperium's institutions are invalid. They will only obey the system left behind by the sacred Emperor."