Horus stood at the center of the towering review stand, looking down upon the endless stream of allied Legions arriving below.
Memories churned through his mind, and in a daze, he seemed to see the Emperor standing here in ages past while he himself led the Luna Wolves back in triumph along the Victory Avenue below for their parade.
But times had changed. Horus had become the one standing upon the review stand.
The Iron Warriors, the World Eaters, the Word Bearers, the Emperor's Children, the incomplete Thousand Sons, the incomplete Night Lords, and the incomplete Alpha Legion.
And the Sons of Horus, the Legion he took the greatest pride in—the strongest, most unstoppable of them all.
The Warmaster's presence far surpassed what it had once been. Even when he had fought Jaghatai Khan and Leman Russ aboard the Vengeful Spirit, he had not possessed anything comparable to it.
Ever since Maloghurst had utterly burned away his own soul and used the ritual dagger to kill the independent fragment of Horus's soul that had still resisted within the depths of the Warp, Horus had completely healed the wound Leman Russ had inflicted upon him.
He no longer bled, for what flowed through his body was no longer blood, but pure Chaos power.
He had completely devoured the powers of the four utterly different gods and fused them into one.
At every moment, Horus's projection within the Warp ravenously consumed the power of the aetheric ocean, growing stronger, stronger, and stronger still.
When Horus stood before them in his iconic black-and-red Terminator armor, not even a single Son of Horus dared approach their father too closely to witness this glorious moment alongside him.
Even a brute like Ezekyle Abaddon, who had shared an excellent relationship with Horus, felt only unfamiliarity and