"So, can you tell me what on earth is going on here now?"
Amit looked at Petrov—whose head had just been blasted open by a plasma bolt, yet was now standing completely restored and undamaged, albeit smoking with black residue—with countless doubts racing through his mind, demanding an explanation.
In just one short hour, the fleets of two Chapters had successfully arrived as reinforcements. The traitors were either dead or routed, their remnants fleeing into the Warp after suffering over ninety percent casualties.
Upon witnessing what transpired on the planetary surface, the rest of the joint traitor fleet broke rank and scattered without waiting for retreat orders, plunging into the depths of the Warp in every direction within that same hour.
The moment those traitors saw the dead Warhammer Guards coming back to life on the ground, they made the single most correct strategic decision of their entire military careers:
Run!
Only by preserving their strength could they hope to avenge their fallen brothers another day.
The Imperial forces had also suffered heavy losses. Due to close-range void engagements, the casualty figures for both Chapters were absurdly high—far worse than what they typically endured when assaulting Necron tomb worlds.
The Flesh Tearers had lost at least four thousand Astartes in this engagement alone. The final post-war toll was still being calculated; while the Abominable Intelligence combat units could easily be replaced, these Space Marines were the handpicked elite of humanity.
It was a staggering loss. Not only had they gained nothing from the victory, but even a campaign against a Necron tomb world would have yielded a treasure trove of high technology; here, they harvested nothing at all.
The corpses of Flesh Tearers lay scattered across every corner of the planetary ruins. Some were blasted beyond recognition by naval bombardment; others were entangled with the remains of Chaos Marines in brutal close-quarters combat, requiring Apothecaries and Abominable Intelligences to separate them piece by piece.
Amit stood at the highest vantage point of the rubble, watching those Iron Warriors crawl back out from the piles of bodies.
He desperately wanted an answer: Why was this happening?
Dark, ominous light enveloped the plowed, ruined ground as tall, imposing figures of the Warhammer Guards resurrected one by one across every sector and began to reform their ranks.
They displayed no shock or confusion over their own deaths and rebirths; instead, they calmly began assisting the Flesh Tearers in gathering the remains of their fallen battle-brothers.
Their transition between states was unnaturally smooth—making it impossible to tell that these warriors had been dead only moments ago, now nonchalantly helping their cousins collect fallen bones.
Amit felt as though he might still be unconscious.
It was a ridiculous thought—a unconscious man rarely realized he was unconscious—yet he couldn't help but entertain the notion, Space Marine or not.
He closed his eyes, waited three seconds, and opened them again.
Watching Petrov seamlessly direct post-battle cleanup operations right beside him, Amit concluded he must be losing his mind.
"Petrov."
His voice was so raspy it hardly sounded like his own.
"Am I dreaming?"
"You are not."
Petrov stood beside him, likewise looking out over the reforming ranks of warriors while issuing orders for the post-battle sweep.
The eerie radiance within him had begun to wane, the blue glow in his eyes slowly receding into some invisible depth, yet his tone carried a bone-deep exhaustion Amit had never heard from him before.
Petrov turned his head to look at his close friend.
"You are completely lucid, and that is precisely the most troublesome part."
---
"This can't be real."
Celladon, Chief Apothecary of the Flesh Tearers, stared at his data slate. His voice shifted from calm to agitated, and from agitated to a tremble.
"I saw it with my own eyes—you were struck dead-on by Lance batteries! Your bodies were blown to pieces, flesh and blood scattered everywhere! Some of you were reduced directly to ash—"
"This is impossible—"
"How could all of you be—"
Celladon felt he must be going insane. Were all these Warhammer Guards Perpetual-class beings? How could that be possible?
"Whatever you saw with your own eyes, you had best forget," Karasus, a Chaplain of the Warhammer Guard, stepped up to him and thrust a data slate into his hands.
"These are the final verified casualty logs. What you saw was merely an illusion."
"Combat stress, obscuring smoke, Warp energy fluctuations—a combination of internal and external factors compromised your sensory systems, leading to a misjudgment. Your cognitive functions are likely somewhat scrambled right now. That is entirely normal."
Celladon looked down at the figures on the data slate, then looked back up at the Warhammer Guard Astartes forming ranks in the distance.
"Brother Chaplain Karasus, I am an Apothecary. I have served our brothers for eight hundred and thirty-seven years. I know what death looks like."
Celladon grabbed Karasus by his chest plate, pulling him close until they were nearly nose-to-nose.
"If you think an explanation that couldn't fool a three-year-old child can fool me, then all I can say is that you hold the Flesh Tearers in far too little regard."
Karasus merely looked at him. In those eyes—remarkably gentle by Iron Warrior standards—there was no threat, no warning, and no attempt to persuade.
His gaze was calm, completely devoid of emotion.
He simply extended the data slate again, his meaning clear: Celladon needed to sign off and confirm it.
Celladon stared at the casualty statistics for a long time, his hands trembling slightly. For a brief moment, he felt his Red Thirst surging, only to forcibly suppress it.
Ultimately, he signed the document and handed the slate back to Karasus.
"Thank you for your cooperation, brother," Karasus said in a flat tone as he accepted the slate.
"The Flesh Tearers' losses will be replenished shortly. Furthermore, the majority of the blame for this campaign falls upon our Chapter Master. We have already reported to the Supreme Commander and our Father; Olympia will issue an additional package of aid to the Flesh Tearers."
Karasus turned and walked away, leaving Celladon standing alone in utter confusion.
He clutched his head. Even when the traitors invaded the galaxy all those centuries ago, he had never felt as deeply shaken as he did right now.
---
At the northeastern corner of the alien hive-nest ruins, Petrov and Amit engaged in a conversation with no third party present.
This place had once been the site of a cluster of alien psychic spires; now, nothing remained except a flat expanse of ground vitrified into glass by Lance fire. The Terminator armor of both warriors left deep, crunching footprints on the glassy surface.
They walked slowly, each weighed down by heavy thoughts.
"You had better give me an explanation."
"Not those absurd lies meant to fool Celladon. I want the real explanation."
"What is actually going on here?"
Amit's blood-red eyes locked tightly onto his friend.
"There are some things you are better off not knowing too much about," Petrov replied. "Even if you do know, and even if you tell Lord Sanguinius, he would choose to trust our Father and help keep this matter quiet."
"You can't hide this, Petrov. This isn't about one or two individuals—it concerns the entire Chapter, if not the whole Imperium. You can try to muzzle us, but there are things coming that you simply won't be able to cover up."
"Sooner or later, you'll be exposed. Incidents like today will only multiply. You can't keep it secret for much longer."
Petrov looked at Amit, who appeared to have regained his rational composure. He trusted his friend, but a secret of this magnitude was never meant to be leaked.
Petrov still clearly remembered the words their Father spoke when he turned them into Perpetuals:
*"Trust no one, not even your closest daily friends. Beyond the brothers within our Chapter, there is no one you can trust with this."*
Yet Amit had seen it with his own eyes. Whether he signed the non-disclosure form or kept his mouth shut, the memory was burned into his mind. It would not fade unless a Primarch intervened or specific Abominable Intelligence protocols were deployed.
Muzzling him was useless.
It would stop him from speaking, but it wouldn't stop him from thinking.
And a Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers who was silently pondering this secret was far more dangerous than one who was openly talking about it—because you could never be sure if his silence signaled loyalty or preparations for a far worse decision.
Petrov had deep, personal experience with these cousins who were notoriously prone to wild, unpredictable maneuvers.
Living long enough meant witnessing every conceivable madness—whether from the Imperium, Chaos, or even the Tyranids and Orks.
Chaos was a constant thread throughout the Imperium.
"Our Father, the current Warmaster of the Imperium..." Petrov finally spoke, keeping his voice extremely low.
"Ever since his return, he has done many things behind the Imperium's back that the Emperor never permitted. The Perpetual transformation technology is merely one of them."
Amit's blood-red eyes stared intently at Petrov. Reflected in his pupils were the distant, burning ruins, the Warhammer Guard warriors collecting bones among the wreckage, and the eyes of the Iron Warrior whose dark-black glow was gradually fading.
"I knew it... Perpetuals."
No matter how foolish Amit might be, he could tell what these warriors had become. But that only deepened his confusion.
"How did you achieve it?"
"Achieve what?"
"An entire Chapter of Perpetuals. No matter how you look at it, that should be impossible."
"I don't know."
"Hmm?"
"Father simply gathered us together, and then we all fell unconscious for a period of time. Beyond that, we know nothing. Ever since then, we have been Perpetuals."
"You know nothing at all?"
Amit's voice carried an unbelievable sense of absurdity.
"The Warmaster turned your entire Legion into Perpetuals, and you... that was it? There's no 'after that'?"
"Otherwise, what?" Petrov countered.
Amit opened his mouth, only to realize he had no answer to offer.
"After that happened, didn't you ever think to figure out what actually happened to your bodies?"
"We thought about it," Petrov's voice remained flat and calm. "But the answer doesn't matter. What matters is the result."
"Father wants us to live, and to keep living continuously. It's as simple as that. What good would it do us to know the mechanics? Father would never harm us."
"You don't want to know?"
Amit's voice suddenly dropped so low it sounded like a whisper to himself.
"Don't you want to know what your Father actually did to turn you into this? Whose bodies did he experiment on? How many lives were sacrificed?"
"No."
Petrov's answer came instantly, as if he had prepared it long ago.
"Father has his reasons for everything he does. We don't need to know what those reasons are; we only need to know that he will never harm us. That is enough."
Amit fell silent again. Quiet descended between the two once more, though the atmosphere grew unnervingly tense.
"How do you resurrect?"
Amit changed the subject, attempting to pull the dialogue out of those uncomfortable depths.
"I mean the actual process of resurrection. Your head was blown apart—what happens next? Do the fragments fly back together on their own? Or does your body grow a new head, or do you manifest a brand-new body out of thin air?"
"I don't know."
"Does your current body still carry the marks of your surgical augmentations?"
"Yes."
"Then that proves this Perpetual state simply rewinds your physical condition back to before you died."
"To be more precise, it's not fragments reassembling; it's that we are re-anchored here, and then we return."
Petrov pointed to the ground beneath his feet.
"Father calls it an 'existence anchor.' Our souls, or our consciousness—whatever it is—our death acts as an anchor fixed within the reality of the material universe."
"As long as that anchor isn't destroyed, our bodies will continuously rebuild. It's not piecing fragments together; it's... I don't know the exact mechanism, but we simply reappear."
"Can your anchors be destroyed?" Amit asked.
"Yes. If the intensity of the damage exceeds the load capacity of the anchor, we will die permanently, with no possibility of resurrection. Father calls this 'anchor collapse.'"
"What level of damage can achieve that?"
"Unknown," Petrov shook his head. "We conducted internal Legion tests. Firepower at the level of an orbital bombardment can kill us directly, but we resurrect. A direct hit from a Lance battery produces the same result. Nova cannons, heavy plasma cannons, even Gauss rifles—"
"We've tested them all, yet we're still alive today. I even participated in an experiment where I was strapped to a macro-cannon shell fired directly into a blue supergiant star. Three hours later, I materialized inside the fleet's medical bay."
Amit's pupils contracted slightly. *Throwing someone into a star doesn't work either?*
"The only thing we know for certain is that certain top-secret weapons of the Necron Dynasties can achieve it. Perhaps the Tyranid swarms invading our galaxy can as well—I heard from Father that those xenos are far from simple."
Petrov recalled the deep apprehension his Father had shown at the time. It was rare to see his Father troubled by the technical superiority of others; the Necrons certainly qualified, and the Hive Fleets accounted for half of his concerns.
"What about Chaos?"
"Chaos cannot do it," Petrov's tone carried a thread of the classic Iron Warrior disdain. "The power of the Warp can kill our flesh, but it cannot destroy our anchor. As long as the anchor remains intact, we can resurrect. The most Chaos can do is make our deaths more painful and prolong our resurrection time. Nothing more."
Amit remained silent. He lowered his gaze to the scorched, vitrified ground beneath his boots, then looked up again at the Warhammer Guard warriors still busily at work in the distance.
"One last question."
"Ask."
"Are you still afraid of dying?"
Amit's question left Petrov stunned for a brief moment, but he quickly recovered.
"Yes."
Petrov's answer surprised Amit once again.
"Why?"
"Because I am no longer a normal human being."
Petrov turned around, gazing toward his Chapter reforming in the distance.
"Father made us Perpetuals, but he didn't turn us into monsters. Yet the longer one lives—especially a Perpetual—the more faded one's emotions become, until one inevitably turns into a heartless monster."
"If that day truly comes, we will become the very monsters our Father spoke of. We don't want to become that."
Amit asked no further questions.
He promised he would keep this secret for the Warhammer Guard, but he would unequivocally report it to their Father, Sanguinius—it was a matter that could never be kept hidden regardless.
Even if Amit remained silent, surviving Flesh Tearers would inevitably report the incident to Sanguinius.
The matter was no longer within their power to decide.
Let the two Primarchs settle how to handle a secret that could never be brought to light.