How Dare You Turn Your Back on Me, Erebus

When Lorgar appeared, Erebus turned to look at him and felt a visceral chill.

"It seems you still don't understand how serious this is." Lorgar picked up a book several inches thick and smiled at Erebus.

"You actually dared to turn your back on me. How brave."

With a sweep of his hand, Lorgar sent hundreds of spear-wielding guards rushing into the cathedral. They surrounded Erebus and several dozen believers in its center.

"Lorgar Aurelian, it seems you don't know who you're dealing with."

Erebus tossed Senatis aside, then strode toward Lorgar with his followers crowding around him.

"I am Erebus, the Dark Apostle—"

"Apostle, my ass!"

Before Erebus could finish, Lorgar hurled the heavy book at him.

Thud!

The cover struck Erebus square in his ugly face. The force knocked him flat.

"That's the weight of knowledge. Get it?"

"AAAAAAAH! Lorgar!"

Erebus struggled to his feet. His nose had been crushed flat, and blood dripped down his twisted face.

"Lorgar! I'll kill you! Kill you!"

"How dare you humiliate me! Humiliate me! I'll turn you into a servant of Chaos—"

Before Erebus could finish, Lorgar moved again. He grabbed a believer by the head and hurled him bodily at Erebus.

This time, Erebus reacted. He raised his hand and split the man in two with a Psychic Energy slash.

"Can't you let me finish speaking, Lorgar?"

"No!"

Lorgar answered Erebus, then waved his guards forward to attack.

The spear-wielding guards showed no fear as they clashed with Erebus's followers.

Some believers tried to attack Lorgar, but against the power of a Primarch, they were helpless.

Lorgar might be weak by Primarch standards, but he was still a Primarch. And he wasn't truly weak—he simply didn't know how to use his strength. People joked that he couldn't beat Guilliman, but in a real fight, Lorgar could put him down in three moves.

After all, Lorgar was a formidable psyker, second only to Magnus in Psychic Energy mastery.

Of course, Lorgar couldn't use Psychic Energy yet. His superhuman brain had simply told him it was time to use his superhuman strength.

Each swing of Lorgar's hand took out not one believer, but several.

With a little force, he reduced them to bloody mist. Even a light swat sent a dozen believers flying and shook them into chunks of flesh.

Lorgar was learning to control his strength. Like a master sculptor judging exactly how much pressure to apply, he could now use just enough force to smash these ordinary believers to bits.

On the other side, Erebus saw how badly things were going and thought of fleeing. But a voice kept speaking inside his head.

Go on...

Do it...

Prove you're no weaker than him... Prove your greatness...

As the low voice echoed through his mind, Erebus angrily snatched up a fallen sword and lunged at Lorgar.

"Ah! I am Erebus, child of Chaos!"

Erebus wreathed the blade in Psychic Energy and thrust it at Lorgar.

Three meters. Two. One.

Erebus watched Lorgar draw closer and felt a surge of triumph. Then his vision went black.

Lorgar lifted Erebus off the ground and aimed the back of his head at the wall.

"No! Don't! Don't!"

Splat!

As though spreading paint, Lorgar smeared Erebus's entire head across the wall.

Thud!

Lorgar looked at Erebus's headless body, then tossed it away, disgusted that he had dirtied his hands.

The believers were nearly all dead as well. A few dozen of them had stood no chance against hundreds of ferocious guards.

"Wasn't that a little too easy?" Lorgar wondered. But there was no time to rest. He ordered his men to destroy the bodies and the entire cathedral, then had them burn everything to the ground.

Deep within the Warp.

The Warp was an infinite dimension formed entirely of Psychic Energy, also known as Heaven.

It was home to the Chaos Gods, a strange, dark parallel to the material universe. Physical laws did not exist there. Everything in it was shaped by the emotions and thoughts of intelligent beings in Realspace.

It was like a mirror of Realspace, except that it teemed with horrors and violence. Its nightmares were alive, and they longed at every moment to break into Realspace and slaughter everything in sight.

Time had no meaning in the Warp, so it and the Chaos Gods who dwelled there had existed long before intelligent life arose.

Deep within a labyrinth in the Warp sat a bird-headed being.

This was Tzeentch, one of the four great Chaos Gods. Tzeentch ruled over change, curiosity, lies, cunning, ambition, opportunity, creativity, innovation, mutation, evolution, pure disorder, manipulation, and malicious destruction.

Now Tzeentch toyed with a timeline glowing blue in his hands. The instant Erebus had died, what had once been a single, simple timeline had split apart.

"Perfect. Endless change." A shriek emerged from Tzeentch's mistlike body.

"I wonder what changes you'll bring me?"

"Little one..."

Tzeentch had manipulated Erebus into throwing his life away for no reason beyond curiosity: to see what would happen next and how the Cursed One would respond.

"The future! Endless futures!"

"Change! Endless change!"

"This game is getting more and more interesting."

Tzeentch calculated every possible future and every new timeline each event might create. The ceaseless changes filled him with delight.

In Khorne's palace, Khorne sat high upon the Brass Throne, deeply displeased with Erebus's fight. He withdrew his power of Chaos and let Lorgar kill him.

"A coward who fails does not deserve my power. Not even you... child of Chaos."

With a flick of his finger, Khorne had decided Erebus's fate. He was already eager to find a new pawn to wield his power.