After hearing the projection's story, Hogg felt deeply conflicted.
His anger vanished. He didn't know whether he felt regret or sorrow. History was set in stone, and he had played an important part in it.
If he hadn't founded the Dog-man Empire on the Green Grasslands, the Dog-man Empire wouldn't have fallen in the future, and Khorne and Jianqi wouldn't have emerged as Chaos Gods.
It was obvious that Khorne had influenced the Necrontyr's inexplicable war against the Old Ones. Hogg didn't know whether Jianqi and Nurgle had played a part, too. Even if The Deceiver, that source of all evil, had been heavily involved, Hogg still had countless ties to all of it.
Hogg released Asuryan and sat down on the steps, utterly dejected. He had come at the wrong time and to the wrong place, and had given some people dreams they should never have had.
It was like a vicious cycle. The Dog-men who had risen from the Green Grasslands to the stars met this fate, as did the Eldar, who had been called the Firstborn of God under the Old Ones. Even humanity, which should have risen to greatness, was no exception.
An invisible hand was tugging at the threads of fate, while they were like characters in a storybook. Everything was a tragedy.
As Hogg's anger faded, his body gradually shrank. Aside from Cain, whose backside was still bleeding, the other four divine projections all felt the fleshly tendrils wrapped around them begin to loosen.
But Hogg's corruption had already taken hold. Even after they were freed, they didn't choose to flee. They were only fragments of their true selves, after all. Their lives were nothing but endless overtime, and they couldn't enjoy themselves like their main bodies did.
Watching Hogg sink into despair, Lorgar