The Ambition of the Skyward Braid

Since the end of the Horus Heresy, the traitorous Space Marines had all hidden within the Warp through the massive rift known as the Eye of Terror. Blown by the endless winds of Chaos, they watched the Imperium with cruel eyes, ready to emerge at any moment and deliver the final blow, setting the entire Milky Way ablaze.

The Warp was bound by none of reality's laws. Birth and destruction left no trace there. Within that mad realm, the Black Legion's leader and great enemy who had brought the Imperium countless wounds and deaths, Warmaster Abaddon, was plotting a new plan of destruction within the evil domain fashioned for him by the dark gods.

Beneath a colossal eight-pointed star forged from black iron and brass, Abaddon was questioning a Tzeentch sorcerer about the key to his future plans.

"Oh! Yes, yes! You must seek an ancient relic, the Eye of Kaznamak. This eye can help you tear apart the veil between reality and illusion, and deploy any force to every corner of the universe."

"If it is as miraculous as you claim, why have we only learned of its whereabouts now?"

Abaddon's red-glowing eyes narrowed dangerously as he stared fixedly at the sorcerer before him.

"Because the mist surrounding this holy relic has slowly dispersed, and its magnificent radiance has bloomed within the endless river of fate."

"Hm! Then where is it?"

The sorcerer lowered his mutated bird head and began muttering to himself. Abaddon did not press him. Tzeentch sorcerers deeply corrupted by Chaos were all like this, forever balanced on the edge between madness and sanity.

A flash of blue light swept past, and the sorcerer's trembling body gradually calmed once more. Yet the blue glow in his eyes had become even more dazzling.

"On Karmaklan World! In the outer star regions of the Emperor's Heart." As he spoke, he conjured a star map with his hand.

Abaddon examined it closely and discovered that Karmaklan was so far from the Eye of Terror that even a hundred thousand light-years would be an understatement. Not to mention the countless Imperial Guard forces and Adeptus Astartes chapters stationed throughout the intervening star regions. Abaddon had no doubt that the moment he so much as poked his head out of the Eye of Terror, tens of millions of Imperial troops would swiftly seal off his routes with Cadia as their center.

This was the common flaw of Tzeentch sorcerers. They always loved to show you an incomparably brilliant future in their prophecies, yet never told you what unbearable prices would have to be paid along the way. Countless fools had walked to their deaths beneath Tzeentch's mockery because of such deception.

Veins bulged across Abaddon's forehead as he seized the Tzeentch sorcerer with his massive power claw. "Do you take me for a fool? At such a distance, if I could truly fight my way there, would I even need the Eye of Kaznamak?"

"No! No! We have made full preparations. We have established a cult on Karmaklan World. We can perform a ritual there to praise the gods and tear open a stable rift!"

"A rift? How many can it transport at once?"

The sorcerer shakily raised his hand and held up a number Abaddon could barely accept.

"At most, three warriors."

Three god-blessed warriors, against a world on the outskirts of the Imperium's core. Considering that the region had long been untouched by large-scale warfare, the strength of the planet's own forces and the defense forces of nearby star regions could be ignored. Even in the worst-case scenario, they would only have to face an Imperial Fists company conducting patrols and drills.

"Three Black Legion warriors skilled in infiltration." Abaddon murmured, already having chosen his candidates.

"The rift will open in one standard month. At that time, the Warp will convulse violently! With the ritual's aid, we can perfectly open the rift and find the Eye of Kaznamak."

Abaddon watched the Tzeentch sorcerer fall into trembling once again. A trace of suspicion passed through his red-glowing eyes. Something felt wrong, but sending three warriors to obtain a holy relic was still worth it. Even if it proved false, it would only mean three warriors failed to return, along with every Chaos cultist on an entire planet. That would still be a blow to the Imperium.

Having considered everything, Abaddon no longer paid attention to the Tzeentch sorcerer, who had descended into madness and was babbling nonsense. He drove his heavy, magnificent blessed armor forward and left the grand hall cast from black iron.

With both hands resting on the spiked railing of the imposing Chaos fortress, Abaddon gazed into the distance at the enormous eight-pointed Blackstone Fortress stationed within the Warp, as well as the colossal warship Planet Killer, whose length was beyond comprehension, silently contemplating his next crusade.

Blackstone Fortress

"Every! Crusade! Is! A! Victory!"

Abaddon believed that when the 13th Black Crusade ended, the Imperium that worshiped the Corpse Emperor would be reduced completely to dust by his hand. Then he would forge a new order in the Milky Way and achieve the grand ideal that even Horus had failed to accomplish!

Lin Fan followed the Kasare 37th Regiment through day after day of training and patrols on Karmaklan Agri-World. Though Lin Fan found such days terribly dull, he had to admit that life on Karmaklan Agri-World was quite pleasant.

The local farmers could all keep themselves fed and clothed, unlike those in hive cities, where people went hungry while enduring the waste and pollution endlessly dumped down upon them from above. To ensure agricultural output, the Adeptus Mechanicus's tech-priests had specifically maintained a stable atmosphere and enormous artificial weather controllers, guaranteeing uninterrupted crop production. Torrential rains on the scale of a collapsing sky filled the world with vitality, while all kinds of unknown local creatures lived contentedly among the tall, luxuriant fields.

After living with the burly men of the assault squad for so long, Lin Fan had gradually figured out some basic information about this unit.

This was a regiment that had only recently been formed, recruiting and training soldiers from the local Planetary Defense Force. It sounded ordinary enough. But the colonel and senior commissar leading it were anything but ordinary. Colonel Mark and Commissar Aude were ruthless veterans who had survived countless bloody battles. They had probably killed more Orks and traitors than the entire regiment had people they knew. The reason Colonel Mark and Commissar Aude had come to train this motley bunch was entirely because of their outstanding merits. After their former star region had become peaceful, they had been rewarded with an assignment to this fertile agri-world, where they could enjoy something like a vacation while putting their veteran command and training abilities to use, cultivating more excellent soldiers for the Imperium.

Bald Old Jock was also a hardened survivor of many wars. After retiring, he had been assigned to Karmaklan Agri-World to manage the Planetary Defense Force. But he felt that such a life did not suit someone born for war like him, so he resigned his post and enlisted in the newly formed 37th Regiment. Relying on his solid abilities, he successfully became the squad leader of the 3rd Company Assault Squad. The only reason he had not become the assault squad leader of the 1st Company or 2nd Company was that those two leaders were equally fearsome men. Compared to them, Old Jock did not even rank.

Other than the assault squads of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Companies, most soldiers in the regiment used locally produced solid-round automatic rifles or weapons preserved in old armories. Even the lasguns, heavy laser cannons, and heavy bolters of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Company Assault Squads had only been forcibly secured during the Kasare Legion's allocations because of Colonel Mark and Commissar Aude's reputations. Otherwise, according to the original plan, they would not have received this equipment until three years later, when weapons arrived aboard transport ships.

The contrast surprised Lin Fan, though he could understand it. In the Imperium, weapons were far more valuable than people. Forge worlds were so scarce, while planets that produced populations were so numerous. Though local military factories were enough to maintain public order, against the monsters and fiends of the universe, one still had to rely on the sturdy, reliable, and powerful standard weapons produced by forge worlds.

Though lasguns were somewhat ineffective against heavily armored Space Marines, that did not mean they lacked the power to threaten them. A fully charged laser could even pierce the weak points of Terminator Armor, while an overloaded power-pack magazine could directly blast through the thick frontal armor of a Dreadnought.

These seemingly crude and simple lasguns were, in truth, a display of humanity's black technology. Even now, the Adeptus Mechanicus could not understand how their power packs functioned; they merely possessed the technology to produce them. By relying on their ability to fire hundreds of high-energy laser beams capable of instantly vaporizing a burly man, their reliability through tens of millions of recharges, and their practicality of being rechargeable even when thrown into a fire, the Adeptus Mechanicus modified their barrels and firing frequencies to create all kinds of lasrifles for different roles.

What Lin Fan found regrettable, however, was that although these laser weapons possessed enough power to vaporize parts of a body, they lacked the stopping power of solid-round weapons. When facing hordes that felt no pain and possessed thick hides, lasguns were even less effective at slowing the tide of bodies than those crudely made solid-round weapons.