"I found you, Savior," Horus said coldly.
He tore open the dome of the Chaos temple with warp power and shattered the Chaos node above it.
As a result, the Lord of Hell's Chaos blockade lost its transmission path.
The veils shrouding each region collapsed one after another, revealing New Longlin's true appearance.
And the war between Chaos and the Imperium grew even more intense.
Horus strode into the temple. Black rifts spread outward from his daemonic body, covering the high-ranking psychic Titans that tried to attack him.
Those psychic Titans were warped and swallowed by the rifts, then vanished without a trace.
The daemonic might he radiated alone dragged those psychic Titans, along with their pilots, into an unknown abyss.
These little toys of the Imperium were simply unable to withstand a single blow before him.
Buzz—
A figure swept over the Dark Emperor's head, more than ten meters of pitch-black daemonic wings unfurling wide.
Sanguinius!
Even after falling into servitude under the Chaos Gods, he remained as magnificent and perfect as an angel, with terrifying combat strength.
The dark Great Angel met the incoming attacks head-on, passing straight through the dense psychic assault and curtain of artillery fire.
He avoided every strike. Not a single bullet or psychic blast touched him, as though he had long since foreseen the trajectories of every attack.
Then, with magnificent swordsmanship, Sanguinius destroyed one Emperor-class god-machine after another. It seemed as though nothing could stop him.
He had once been the Imperium's Ninth Primarch, the gene-sire of the Blood Angels, and one of the strongest Primarchs.
Sanguinius possessed a form of foresight that allowed him to predict and evade most attacks.
Ten thousand years ago, he had even gone alone to stop Horus, who was being controlled by the Chaos Gods, and left a deep wound on him.
Now this Great Angel had fallen into the hands of the gods and launched a ferocious attack against the Imperium's lines.
"Father!"
When Dante and the other Blood Angels saw this, their hearts nearly shattered.
Their gene-father, the holy Great Angel, was being controlled and profaned by the Dark Gods of Chaos.
What sorrow could be greater than this?
They could sense the struggle and wailing of the Great Angel's soul. That being did not want to do this.
Yet he could not resist the darkness corroding his soul.
Dante and the other Blood Angels warriors tried to step forward and stop him, but they were affected by a strange power.
They became violent. Their bodies felt as though they were being torn apart, and they experienced the pain Sanguinius had suffered ten thousand years ago when he was ripped apart and tortured.
That pain sank deep into the soul.
Dante and the other Blood Angels were affected by the Black Rage and could not stop their gene-father's actions.
Deep within their souls, there was even a voice commanding these sons of the Great Angel to obey, ordering them to cast themselves into the darkness of Chaos.
"Inhibitors!"
Dante growled the order, commanding the Blood Angels warriors to inject special drugs to suppress the Black Rage within their bodies.
The Savior's Institute of Genetic and Psychic Heredity had tried to cure this flaw, but in the end, every attempt had failed.
That unnatural power was too strong, and it came from both Sanguinius and the supreme beings of the Warp.
Only if they were willing to sever their bloodline connection to the Great Angel could new recruits be spared the torment of the Black Rage.
The Blood Angels rejected that treatment. They could not abandon their gene-father.
Fortunately, the institute eventually offered a compromise. They could use inhibitors to better suppress the influence of the Black Rage and continue fighting normally.
But this time, the Black Rage was abnormally powerful. Even after Dante and the others injected the inhibitors, they could not fight normally as they had before.
They could only watch helplessly as Horus, the Great Angel, and the Dark Honor Guard broke into the Chaos temple.
That was the region where His Majesty the Savior's throne was located!
"By the Savior, the sons of Sanguinius cannot retreat in such disgrace. We must overcome the fear and rage in our hearts!"
Dante stared at the backs of Horus and the other Chaos beings, and scenes from ten thousand years ago churned through his mind.
This Chapter Master felt as though he had returned to the era of the Great Crusade and experienced that great rebellion. The Great Angel's memories were affecting his genetic sons.
Those painful memories were enough to drive them mad. Fortunately, he controlled himself and once again led the Blood Angels onward with difficulty toward the Chaos temple.
They could not allow His Majesty the Savior to be harmed!
Dante and the others knew that His Majesty the Savior's true body was in that region. If anything happened to him, it would be a tremendous disaster for the Imperium.
Mankind could not lose the Savior!
Horus, that Dark Emperor, had used the authority of the Chaos Gods to impose a reverse blockade, causing too many of the Imperium's elites to be barred outside the Chaos temple.
They were the only elite force capable of entering the Chaos temple to provide support!
Before Horus's Chaos veil fully formed, these elite Blood Angels troops charged resolutely into the Chaos temple where the Savior was located.
Dante, in particular, had already prepared himself for true retirement!
...
Chaos Temple.
The hall.
Horus merely lifted a hand, and the burning lava flames were extinguished. The influence created by the Lord of Hell was dispersed.
He had already destroyed and reversed the related nodes, preventing that being from influencing the reality of the galaxy.
The might granted to him by the Chaos Gods was not weaker in the slightest than the hellish authority the Savior had obtained.
It was even stronger.
"You hid quite deeply, but unfortunately, it served no purpose. Are you truly so afraid of fighting me?
"Or is it that, after losing the armor forged from the Corpse-Emperor's bones, you are nothing at all?"
Horus raised his head and looked at the figure on the Chaos throne. There was a trace of disdain on his face.
The Savior's true body was much weaker than he had imagined. It even seemed somewhat slender.
To blockade New Longlin, that coward had hidden the Chaos temple and himself in the border region between the Warp and the galaxy.
It had taken Horus considerable effort to find him.
Judging by the current result, the Savior had miscalculated.
That coward had indeed concealed his tracks, but it had also left him isolated and unable to receive timely support from the other Primarchs and the Imperium's elites.
Now this Chaos temple was a cage, and the other party was the little rat trapped inside it.
"So you've come."
Eden slowly opened his eyes and looked down from above at Horus and Sanguinius beneath the throne as he spoke.
Since he had been found, he could only face the battle head-on.
The only pity was that he had lost the Armor of Redemption, which had weakened him considerably.
The risk had increased greatly.
Truthfully, Eden did not dare guarantee that he could defeat Horus. Fighting Horus was roughly equivalent to fighting the Chaos Gods themselves.
No one knew what methods the Chaos Gods had hidden away, especially when Their whereabouts were unknown.
Even the Emperor had once overturned because of Them. Eden had to handle this battle with even greater caution.
"Horus, are you truly willing to become a slave of the gods? They are mankind's true enemies."
Eden remained seated steadily upon the Chaos throne, his tone gentle.
He began the routine trash-talk segment before the duel, mainly because he also wanted to stall for time.
There were quite a few enemies on the other side right now, and if he entered the field himself, he would be at a disadvantage.
No matter how strong this Savior was in the Warp, in the galaxy he still had to obey the laws of physics. His true body would tire, be wounded, bleed, and collapse if his strength was exhausted.
If possible, he still had to preserve as much stamina and advantage as he could.
Especially when neither he nor the Imperium could afford to lose.
This was a duel of life and death. If he lost, the Chaos Gods would be able to recover Their costs at extreme speed and devise a million ways to hunt down his essential being in the Warp.
Moreover, once Hope Sun and his dark-side avatar lost their true body in the galaxy, it would be equivalent to losing the restraint of their human side.
That might cause his power to run out of control.
"No. I will not become the servant of any being, nor will I submit to any being.
"I shall be the supreme ruler of the galaxy. All beings who try to obstruct this have only one fate.
"And that is death."
Under the red light, Horus's face became increasingly hideous.
At present, the only being in the galaxy who could compete with him for the position of lord of mankind was this Savior.
Therefore, that coward, that lapdog of the False Emperor, had to die. There was no second possibility. The galaxy could not have two emperors.
"In that case, there is nothing left to discuss." Eden's gaze turned cold, and with a buzz, a gentle golden light spread from his body.
It reached into the void above his head.
He had already accumulated enough power.
Time to call for help!
Yet in the next instant, Eden went numb, and his brow furrowed deeply.
The Chaos Gods' blockade seemed to have been upgraded further, with quite a few patches added. It placed layer upon layer of obstruction before his psychic power.
Endless barriers were established around Horus as their center, to the point that the teleportation array was temporarily interrupted.
"Did the gods predict my prediction?!" Eden thought. He tried calling for help for a long while, but no one came.
He had no way to continue constructing the psychic teleportation array. Even the Lord of Hell's faith-born warp power was not easy to send into this region anymore.
Eden stalled out and sat blankly on the Chaos throne.
He looked at his own empty line, then at Horus, Sanguinius, the Chaos daemons, and the others on the opposite side. For a moment, he did not know what to say.
The scene grew awkward.
Now he, the Savior, had become the disadvantaged party. For a moment, he felt as though Chaos heretics were bullying him in his old age and weakness.
There was no helping it. Not long before, he had divided his attention to investigate the whereabouts of the Chaos Gods, which had delayed him for a while.
As a result, before he could organize his defenses, his true body had been found.
"Savior, are you that afraid of my arrival?"
Horus sneered. "You wanted to stall for time and establish a teleportation passage, waiting for support from the other Primarchs?
"Unfortunately, you will not get it.
"Chaos has already taken the advantage. I have sealed this place. Fools like Guilliman have no way to enter this temple."
He laughed coldly.
"Do you not enjoy using despicable methods to gang up on and kill your opponents? I shall grant you the same death!"
During this battle, the Chaos coalition led by Horus had been ganged up on by the Savior's armed forces again and again. His anger had long since filled his stomach.
He, the Dark Emperor, would also gang up on the Savior for once.
Haaah!!!
Horus suddenly gathered his strength and erupted with dazzling black flames, forming an abominable tornado around him.
Then he drove it fiercely into the void.
Time to call for help!
The Dark Emperor mobilized his warp power to contact those fallen Primarchs who had escaped the Lord of Hell's blockade and transfer them into this Chaos temple.
They would gang up on the Savior and tear him apart completely!
The black tornado ripped open the void and formed a passage, so imposing that it instantly drew every being's gaze.
However, that tornado passage lasted for several seconds without the slightest movement.
"What is going on?"
Horus looked at the information coming from within the passage, his brow furrowing.
Not a single one of the fallen Primarchs such as Mortarion responded to the summons. Worse still, they had lost contact, as though they no longer belonged to the system of the Chaos Gods.
That was not a good sign.
Could Guilliman, Rogal Dorn, and the other loyalist Primarchs have used the time bought by the Lord of Hell's blockade to kill all the fallen Primarchs?
How was that possible?
Horus found it rather unbelievable.
In such a short time, losing one or two fallen Primarchs was possible.
Even so, it should have been impossible for their entire force to be wiped out, right?
"Useless wretches! Shameful traitors!"
Yet in the next instant, Horus's expression changed drastically. He received an even more unacceptable piece of information.
Mortarion and the other fallen Primarchs had not perished. Instead, they had submitted to the Lord of Hell. In other words, they had become enemies of the Chaos Gods.
He finally understood why the Chaos Gods had suffered setback after setback over the past several centuries. With such vermin as Their Chosen, how could They possibly defeat the Imperium?!
Horus's roar gradually weakened. The surrounding black tornado also grew smaller and smaller, its momentum fading.
His call for help had failed too.
For a time, both sides fell silent, and the atmosphere became even more awkward.
Eden nearly laughed out loud.
Horus had used the power of the Chaos Gods to establish barriers and temporarily restrict his teleportation plan.
And Eden had already taken care of all the fallen Primarchs in advance, leaving the Dark Emperor with no one to teleport.
In other words, both sides had fought to a draw.
Although Horus had failed to call in reinforcements, Eden did not let down his guard.
At present, Horus's side still had the numerical advantage, and they even had the Chaos Primarch Sanguinius.
While Eden was thinking, Horus moved.
Boom!!!
In an instant, black flames swept in, and Eden also mobilized golden flames mixed with hellish warp power to oppose them.
Yet those were merely the manifestations of authority within the reality of the galaxy. Whether it was Horus, who possessed the might of the Four Gods, or the Savior, their very existences had long since transcended the definition of battle within the material universe.
Their strikes were no longer confined to physical space.
The battle between Eden and Horus occurred simultaneously in the reality of the galaxy, the Warp, and higher-dimensional spaces touched by divinity.
Multiple dimensions interwove and crushed violently against one another.
Their wills stirred storms in the depths of the Warp, tearing every whisper and murmur into dust.
Those violent fluctuations spread beyond the temple. Chaos storms roared, the wails of billions of souls being torn apart and reforged in the Chaos furnace.
The structure of reality hovered on the edge of collapse. This Chaos temple was no longer a material existence, but a living battlefield between the Warp and the galaxy.
Hellish lava, plague pus, blood, and more seeped endlessly from the cracks!
"This must have been the kind of momentum the Emperor had when he fought Horus and the Chaos Gods back then, right?
"Perhaps this battle is even fiercer…"
Eden endured tremendous pressure. The authority of Horus and the Chaos Gods was far too powerful.
He dealt with the multidimensional war and was forced to invest all his attention.
Eden was very worried.
He was being restrained by Horus and the Chaos Gods. That meant his true body on the Chaos throne might be attacked by other Chaos beings.
Especially Sanguinius.
That alone was a tremendous disadvantage!
On the higher-dimensional battlefield, Eden took a direct strike from the gods' might and poured a surge of power into the Chaos temple.
Roar—
In an instant, several Greater Daemons of Hell appeared.
These were the Chaos beings he had painstakingly cultivated during this period to serve as his public face.
They were roughly equivalent to a ceremonial guard.
Although these Greater Daemons of Hell were slightly weaker than Primarchs, they could still temporarily act as meat shields and block incoming attacks.
There was no helping it. No one knew when support from his Primarch brothers such as Lion, or from Chosen such as Mortarion, would arrive.
And Eden sensed the threat from Sanguinius. The other party was already attacking his true body.
That would be a lethal danger. Hopefully, these Greater Daemons of Hell could withstand the dark Great Angel's attack!
(End of Chapter)
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