Scattered Across the Galaxy

The Emperor flashed forward, standing before them to face the Warp storm. Golden divine light shot from his eyes as he confronted the Four Chaos Gods, using the blood-linked connection to search the Warp for the Primarchs.

"Erda?! Are you all right?" Malcador lost his composure and hurried to Erda's side. He slowly crouched until they were eye to eye. His voice remained gentle, yet felt utterly unfamiliar.

Malcador's gaunt face was no longer calm. The gloom in his eyes had nearly become tangible, and they brimmed with regret.

"I gave my children freedom. They will not become weapons of war." Erda stared blankly, Malcador's aged face reflected in her vacant eyes. "Sigillite Malcador, will you hold a mother accountable for this?"

Even as the gods' triumphant snickers faded into the distance, Erda did not regret what she had done.

"You are those children's mother. You are not merely their mother; you are also the Emperor's closest friend and the steward of the newborn Imperium."

Malcador shook his head helplessly. His heart was filled with pain and unwillingness. How was he supposed to say it?

Erda had thrown the Emperor's and his own hopes for the future, their planned beautiful vision, and a vital piece of their great undertaking into the Warp.

A pair of eyes stared at the Warp rift. How much could still be salvaged depended entirely on the man standing before them and what he could achieve in his clash with the gods.

The Emperor found the Primarchs within the Warp. His will plunged into its depths, beginning a struggle against the Four Chaos Gods on an entirely different level.

Wrinkles covered Malcador's ancient face, which was filled with regret. He painfully raised his head and tightly shut his stinging eyes, unwilling to let Erda see his vulnerability.

"Erda, you have committed an irreparable mistake!" Rarely, Malcador's ever-composed voice trembled with grief and indignation as he rebuked her.

"As the Emperor's closest friend, you betrayed him! You tore apart every path he had planned, all for the selfishness called 'motherly love.'

"I do not know what the Warp showed you, but as a mother, is sending your children—pure as blank paper—into a galaxy covered in filth truly something a 'mother' could do?"

Malcador shook his head helplessly. At this point, with his wisdom, it was easy for him to realize that Erda had been beguiled by the Warp into committing an act of supreme folly.

"In the end..."

All blame was pale and powerless after the deed was done. The old man who had devoted himself heart and soul to building the Imperium of Man looked at Erda's bloodless face and let out a helpless sigh.

"The Primarchs are among humanity's most important assets. Because of the gods' lies, they have been scattered throughout the universe, completely beyond the Emperor's control and exposed to the greed of dark powers."

"They are destined to return, but when they do, they will no longer be what the Emperor hoped for. As for how the gods will deceive and shape them, what can you, their mother, do about it?"

The words and questions at her ear, along with that blood-soaked reality, pierced Erda's soul. She lowered her head, her body trembling violently.

"Assets?" Erda did not answer. At the final words, she suddenly raised her head, her lips trembling as she questioned Malcador. "You compare them to assets?"

"Yes." Malcador's expression remained blank as he uttered that cold word. Then he continued, "Within the Imperium of Man, you are an asset. I am an asset. Everyone is!"

He raised a gaunt hand from his broad sleeve and pointed at the Emperor standing before them, fighting the Warp. "He is as well!"

That aged, low voice was not describing something. It was stating an ironclad fact.

He was as well!

Those three words exploded beside Erda's ears. Her muddled mind jolted awake, and a chill spread from her spine as though she had fallen into an ice pit.

Only then did Erda finally understand. Her former close friend had completely changed for the sake of humanity's revival.

The two people before her would bargain with the Warp and use every possible means, abandoning everything from their past, all for a single goal: restoring humanity!

In that process, everything was calculated. Every person and object was merely a simple component upon the war chariot called the "Imperium."

"I am not the asset you speak of, and neither are my children."

Having understood everything, Erda's pale face turned cold as frost. She slowly rose and said to Malcador, "You may judge me now, Malcador!"

"Judge you?" Erda's resolute figure was reflected in Malcador's eyes, and he was deeply puzzled.

Even now, Erda still had not realized what she had done.

Within a grand undertaking, her pity and feelings toward a single person or a single matter were so insignificant when placed against humanity as a whole.

Yet it was precisely those insignificant emotions that gave the gods an opening.

The Emperor loved more deeply than Erda, but his love did not show itself on the surface. He protected in silence.

The Emperor loved all humanity, not any one individual among humanity.

He could abandon anyone's life, using sacrifice to protect humanity as a whole. There was no upper limit to those sacrifices. If necessary, he could even sacrifice himself.

Using lesser love to destroy greater love—judging by victory and defeat alone, the gods had won beautifully.

"You are inside the game, yet you still do not understand?" Malcador let out a long breath and met Erda's beautiful eyes.

"You will be judged, but not by me. The gods will dispose of a chess piece that has lost its value."

"My dear Erda," Malcador said, looking like an elder now as he regarded her with great pity. "How absurd the evil gods' prank is—you will experience for yourself the consequences born from your choice."

Feeling the sincerity in his words, Erda did not dare meet those concerned eyes. She slowly turned her face away and said nothing.

"You should go." Malcador stepped aside, opening a path for her to leave. He offered her his heartfelt blessing. "I hope you can escape fate and live well."

"After all, there are fewer and fewer of us immortal friends who have known one another for so long."

Erda hesitated for a while after hearing that, then slowly moved. After one final glance at the golden figure standing before the Warp storm and protecting everything, she staggered out of the laboratory.

Malcador watched her leave. In the end, he turned all his helplessness into a long sigh and shifted his attention back to the Emperor.

The Golden Sun cast endless radiance through the Warp, chasing the surging tides stirred up by the Four Chaos Gods as the twenty-one Incubation Pods rapidly fell into the depths of the Warp.

Deep within the Warp, the wills of the Four Chaos Gods collided. Mad laughter and shrieks echoed through the Warp as they sought to seize all the spoils. The void twisted into palms and tentacles that crushed and fought over the Incubation Pods.

Khorne's bloody hand reached down, only for dark thorns to block him. Sorcery wove itself into a net, scooping up an Incubation Pod and carrying it toward Tzeentch's domain, where it sank into the irreversible Entropy Swamp.

The Four Chaos Gods held one another in check. No god could escape the endless chain of suspicion, and whenever one gained the upper hand, the other three struck without hesitation.

There was no such thing as enmity or friendship in the Warp. Interest was eternal, and there was no trust between the Four Chaos Gods.

The Emperor swiftly entered the fray and broke the deadlock. While the Four Chaos Gods were distracted by their struggle, he stirred psychic power to scatter the Incubation Pods, hurling the Primarchs deeper into the Warp.

"Human! How despicable!"

The Four Chaos Gods roared in fury. A single human dared provoke all four of them at once.

This was no mere provocation. It was boundless contempt for divine majesty!

The Emperor's purpose was simple. The Warp was the Four Chaos Gods' home ground, and it was impossible to gain an advantage against four true gods. Acting as a disruptor instead gave him greater initiative.

The best solution now was to obstruct the Four Chaos Gods and ruin their plans completely, turning the game into one with no winner.

"You will not get them!"

Amid hatred and scorn, a psychic incantation rang out from the Golden Sun.

Thirteen syllables echoed through the Warp. The moment they fell, the Warp tide carrying the Primarchs accelerated once more, sweeping the Incubation Pods out of the Warp and scattering them across the galaxy.

In a flash, the Four Chaos Gods had already devised their response.

They stopped fighting one another. Before the Incubation Pods could leave the Warp, they abandoned what was nearly within their grasp, each selecting an Incubation Pod they favored and sending them out of the Warp toward worlds they had long prepared.

"Human, crawl back to the material universe. This is not your domain!"

Under the Four Chaos Gods' influence, the ever-accommodating Warp now expelled the unwelcome guest from the material universe.

The Emperor felt himself struggling to maintain an anchor in the Warp. Seeing that most of the Incubation Pods had already left, he did not resist, and the Golden Sun slowly withdrew.

Then, in another instant, the Emperor fired a blast of psychic power with the portion of his consciousness that had not yet fully left the Warp.

He had seen four arms emerge from the void, all reaching for the Twenty-First Incubation Pod.

What exactly is he? The Emperor was filled with questions, unable to understand why the Four Chaos Gods had taken such a particular interest in that special soul.

That brief confusion did not delay his actions. Anything the Four Chaos Gods cared about was something the Emperor had to obstruct!

"Take a look at this! My actions are justified!" The majestic voice of golden will echoed through the Warp.

The Emperor cast out a sheet of parchment from the Golden Sun he had become. It bore the marks of the Four Chaos Gods.

Though the Warp was evil and ever-changing, it had another side: it valued contracts and rituals.

The Emperor produced the contract, and its contents immediately took effect. Warp power slipped free of the Four Chaos Gods' control and dissipated within the contract's radiance, no longer obstructing him.

"No!" Divine fury erupted from the depths of the Warp. Affected by the contract, the evil gods' consciousnesses were driven back into their true bodies.

Khorne rose from the Brass Throne and swept his sword across the air. Its blade light tore through the distance of the Warp and shot toward the Golden Sun.

The Emperor once again infused the contract with psychic power, turning the clauses that restrained the evil gods from violating the contract into weapons against them.

The evil gods' marks shone brilliantly. Chains shot from the mouths of the skulls upon Khorne's Skull Throne, binding him and dragging him back onto the Brass Throne, restraining him upon it.

The other evil gods suffered the same fate and could not resist. These powers came from themselves; they were self-imposed restraints.

"Evil gods. Our deal remains valid. Now is not the time to fulfill the contract."

Seeing that the Incubation Pods had safely left the Warp, the Emperor left behind a warning and departed the Warp in contempt of the Four Chaos Gods' rage.

His soul returned to the laboratory. Only Malcador and the newly arrived Valdor were waiting; Erda had already left.

Without asking when Erda had departed, he silently closed his eyes and sensed those lost sons bound to him by blood across the material universe.

"They are all right. Though they have been scattered across the galaxy and their exact locations are difficult to determine, I can be certain that they are still alive."

Then he said to Malcador with some surprise, "One of them is even close to us. He is on Terra."

"My friend, we must hurry." The Emperor knew that Terra was no less dangerous than the galaxy. He immediately set out with Malcador toward the location of that lost son.

"The new genetically enhanced warriors must enter mass production at once. The galaxy awaits humanity's conquest. We must find my sons before the evil gods do and change them completely."