Falling into the Warp

A massive explosion.

The Aeldari warship had successfully slipped into the very center of the Chaos Fleet as planned.

When the terrifying payload of munitions aboard it detonated, reducing the entire Aeldari warship to atoms, the battle for Vigilus finally came to an end.

On the ground, Abaddon paid Calgar no further attention. He turned and teleported back to his flagship through Warp sorcery, terrified that he would be parted from the Vengeful Spirit.

The ground troops looked at the uncanny light overhead that outshone the star, and after a brief moment of confusion, erupted into thunderous cheers.

The Ultramarines' Honour Guard rushed to Calgar, hurriedly placed him on a stretcher, and ran toward the emergency room already prepared in the rear.

But Calgar, unable to move his body, lay on the familiar stretcher, his eyes fixed on the rift overhead that was swallowing every warship.

His lips moved as well, as though silently murmuring a certain name...

Vigilus descended into celebration. Meanwhile, before the rift, Sith clung tightly to the warship, feeling the violent shaking as the entire vessel trembled beneath his feet. Watching the Warp Rift draw ever closer, he abandoned all restraint and unleashed a torrent of abuse at Calgar!

But those curses could no longer reach him. Sith could only watch helplessly as he and the wreck beneath his feet were swept into the rift amid the densely packed Chaos warships surrounding them.

Beside him, after working desperately against the tremendous suction for a time, the second officer raised a deathly pale face and screamed in terror:

"The Gellar Field..."

"The Gellar Field's been knocked out!!!"

Sith, Brunok, Ana, and even Daviro, who had been awake for a little while, all instantly tore their eyes away from the rift ahead and stared at the second officer.

And then...

The warship plunged into the rift!

The Warp was the Sea of Souls, filled with nearly every emotion in the universe, along with the countless daemons born from those emotions.

Traveling through the Warp was therefore like sailing across the Sea of Souls, and the Gellar Field had to be activated to prevent endless Warp daemons from entering the ship.

An uncanny world stretched without end, with all manner of utterly bizarre lights shining overhead. Beneath them lay the crystalline, tangible Sea of Souls, its magnificent beauty sparkling with endless points of light.

Far across the "sea," at the edge of the uncanny firmament, a pale blue setting sun continuously shed its light upon this world.

But anyone who could stand in the middle of the Sea of Souls and look around would discover other such setting suns, in pink, red, and green. Including the golden one steadily rising in another direction, five "suns" now stood above the Warp's Sea of Souls.

And beneath those five lights, terrifying Warp waves were surging through one region of the endless Sea of Souls!

Densely packed Chaos warships pitched incessantly upon the Sea of Souls. Many smaller warships were overturned entirely by the waves and swept away to unknown destinations.

Only the enormous Vengeful Spirit at the very center could barely maintain its stability amid such terrifying waves.

But the Vengeful Spirit was not faring particularly well either. The Aeldari warship had exploded almost directly against it, and its entire starboard hull had been blasted apart. Endless Warp waves surged inside, bringing with them deranged daemons born from all manner of extreme emotions within those waves.

At the breach, the first captain commanded the cultist forces and Chaos Astartes in holding back these abominations.

Though they possessed the blessings of the four gods, within the Warp, the four gods could not-or did not wish to-make every Warp daemon obey their followers.

Thus, even Chaos could only fight these daemons to the death under such circumstances, until the moment the Gellar Field came back online.

Yet during the lulls in battle, not only Abaddon, safe farther in the rear, but even the first captain on the front line had his attention elsewhere than the Vengeful Spirit.

Abaddon, the first captain, and even nearly everyone aboard all the surrounding Chaos and Imperial warships with active Gellar Fields had their eyes fixed on the Sword-class Frigate that endless Warp daemons had completely enveloped in a sphere.

Because aside from the Vengeful Spirit, it was the only ship present without a Gellar Field that had yet to fall!

Abaddon watched the Warp daemons aboard the Vengeful Spirit being driven back once more, and the Gellar Field restored through the Dark Mechanicum's emergency repairs. Finally, he turned his full attention to the endless daemons outside the ship, which had already formed a solid, enormous sphere.

"How long has it been? A few hours? Or a few days?"

The flow of time in the Warp was utterly disordered as well. What felt like a few hours might actually be years, decades, or even centuries or millennia.

Of course, that span might also be no more than a fleeting instant.

At Abaddon's cold question, the Dark Mechanicum beside him brought out a vast array of instruments and performed frantic calculations before finally producing a result:

"The probability of five minutes is 34.5 percent, the probability of seven days is 17.6 percent, and the probability of two months is 62.9 percent."

The report came mechanically in a cold electronic voice, but the instant those three results were delivered, even Abaddon could not help lifting his head slightly. His eyes widened wordlessly as he looked toward that ever-expanding spherical tide of daemons!

"Two... months?!"

Even after experiencing the Long War, Abaddon now had to regard this Sword-class Frigate-or rather, Sith, who had jumped back onto it in the opposite direction-with "respect"!

It was genuine respect, for Abaddon believed in strength above all and respected any powerful force.

And Abaddon was not alone in expressing his shock through "respect." Everyone on both the Chaos and Imperial sides around him looked on in boundless shock.

Every ship, after all, had members of the Adeptus Mechanicus aboard, and each of them had given roughly the same estimate.

"A band of mortals held out in the Warp for two months without a Gellar Field."

Once the onlookers on both sides had fully absorbed this information, every one of them could not help trembling deep within.

After all, for these witnesses, the shock was no less than seeing the god they worshipped appear before their very eyes!

But while the outside onlookers remained silent, their hearts trembling, aboard the bridge of this mass-produced Imperial frigate at the very center of the ever-expanding spherical tide of daemons...

Sith stood atop a mountain of Warp daemons and swung his Power Sword, cleaving an unknown daemon before him in two.

Warp daemons immediately turned to ash when they died in the material universe, but within the Warp that had birthed them, they left corpses upon death, retaining their forms for a time.

Thus, beneath Sith's feet was not merely a mountain of daemon corpses, but a sea of them that filled the entire frigate.

Around Sith stood the Black Watch, who had discarded their firearms, long since emptied of ammunition, and taken up all manner of melee weapons instead.

But compared to the tens of thousands who had lifted off from Vigilus, fewer than two thousand remained around Sith after two months of ceaseless slaughter.

Yet even among these two thousand, eliminating a single one often cost the daemons an unimaginable price.

And after Sith had continued hacking away for who knew how long, under the close scrutiny of all the Chaos and Imperial onlookers, the long-awaited blessing for such a miracle finally descended!

Surging Warp energy churned within the uncanny firmament, where the light that heralded a blessing steadily gathered.

Seeing that the God-Emperor truly was manifesting, those on the Imperial side fell to their knees in excitement, calling out in devotion.

Those on the Chaos side averted their eyes slightly, instinctively somewhat afraid to look directly at the light about to take shape.

Many Chaos sorcerers even inwardly grumbled about the enormous scale of this blessing.

For a blessing that required such a long time to gather seemed intended not for a single person, but for hundreds or thousands!

The Chaos sorcerers even lowered their heads and exchanged glances, unable to stop themselves from grumbling inwardly:

What? Are you going to bless every single person in there, you yellow-skinned bastard? Isn't that rather too extravagant of you?!

But as Chaos lowered its head and the Imperium cheered, the light gradually took shape-and the first to show shock was Abaddon!

Clang!

His massive body abruptly rose from the Warmaster's throne on the bridge. This time, Abaddon could no longer maintain his composure. His eyes widened in shock, and even his mouth fell open unconsciously. He could only stare blankly at the fully formed blessing, his expression strained with utter indignation.

Then, under the bewildered gazes of the Imperial side as well, the light of the blessing passed through the daemons and shone into the ship.

Feeling the strength returning within him, even greater than when he had been at full strength.

Sith stared blankly at his left hand holding the Chainsword, and then his face...

Was bathed red by the light!

"Why... is it red light again?!"