At the very moment when two tyrants joined forces—conspiring to treat all living beings in the universe as their private property—the material universe fell into an uneasy calm.
The flames of war subsided for a time.
Across the galaxy, all life watched in terror as the cosmos itself changed. The Great Rift that had torn the Milky Way asunder was healing—and even the Eye of Terror, that ancient wound of tens of thousands of years, had vanished.
No one yet understood what this meant.
It was a declaration.
One galactic tyrant was about to relinquish his throne and fade away, while another—one who already claimed dominion not only over the Human Imperium but across the entire multiverse—was about to assume her rule.
...
The Eye of Terror—or rather, the star sector where it had once existed.
Yvraine stood before the massive observation viewport, watching the great conflagration that had raged for hundreds of millions of years finally subside.
The once-turbulent Sea of Souls, filled with inhuman screams and psychic tempests, was now silent. The monstrous, ever-glaring eye that had once shone malevolently across the galaxy was gone.
In its place spread a blinding, majestic radiance—so vast it filled every visible horizon, its edge tracing a faint curve of impossible beauty.
Righteousness vast as the heavens, majesty shining bright—dominion unchallenged, glory unmatched.
The infinite energy that radiated from that light—Yvraine could not even determine its nature. She only knew that even if she mustered all the power of the Ynnari and the remnants of the Aeldari, it would never be enough to oppose it.
Clatter—
It was not a projection, nor psychic energy, nor a warp storm. It was sheer mass—the tremor of an object so enormous that its movement caused a Roche limit–level vibration through the ship's hull. The mighty battleship, once steady as a planet, now shook like a tiny skiff amid storming seas.
Rivets and steel plates groaned; servos and bulkheads screamed under the pressure.
Then, just as suddenly, it passed. The divine being had noticed her children—and the prospective new ones awaiting judgment.
"They say a soul only understands itself once its freedom is taken. I wonder, Aeldari—so proud, so vain—how well do you understand yourselves now?"
In the still void, the first sound was that of shattering glass.
Then came a woman's faint, disdainful laugh.
"Finality."
Yvraine murmured, forcing herself to look up, meeting the descending gaze. Bitterness and helpless awe filled her heart. For a moment, she had reached the limit of her perception—only to realize the gulf between them was infinite.
Judgment.
She knew, without question, that the fate of her people was being decided.
All words, all negotiations dissolved beneath those eyes—eyes like dying stars. Pleas for limited autonomy, for continued worship of Aeldari gods, for preservation of their culture—all fell silent in her throat.
"The Aeldari," she whispered, voice trembling, "offer our entire race to the Sacred Empire."
She closed her eyes and bowed deeply, her body trembling.
Resist?
The current ruler of the galaxy was the Human Imperium itself—and even they had ceased to resist. The fragmented remnants of the ancient Aeldari could do nothing but die if they defied her.
She looked around. There was nowhere left to run.
The Webway? The kin of Commorragh had just been annihilated.
The Craftworlds and Exodite colonies were all on the brink—mud idols sinking in the flood.
The Harlequins of the Laughing God? Ha. The Sacred Selene Empire had declared them targets for extermination or unconditional surrender. Their fate might soon be worse than her Ynnari's.
"A wise answer. But you played a small trick," Selene said coolly. "I don't believe you have the right to speak for the entire Aeldari race."
Hovering before the fleet of the Sacred Selene Empire, Selene raised her hand slightly, signaling her soldiers to stand down. Then she folded her fingers together before her chest, appearing calm but radiating regal dominance.
The silhouette of a cosmic deity loomed behind her. Her starlit gown, woven of flowing sands of eternity, shimmered like both mist and dream.
Yvraine's bitter smile deepened, her head bowing lower in acknowledgment of Selene's words.
Still, she had made the only possible choice. Even if the Aeldari had fractured into a thousand clans long estranged, when extinction loomed, saving any fraction of their kin was worth it.
"I'll give you one chance—and it will be your only chance. Since you still have pity for your kin, then persuade the Aeldari tribes you know to submit to the Empire, to become its vassals. I will shelter you and permit your kind to live within this sector."
In truth, Selene had little interest in the Aeldari and had never cared much for them.
After all, their decline was far too severe. They had lost more of their science and culture than even humanity.
In a sense, the Necrons' Great Sleep had achieved its purpose—defeating their enemies through the passage of time itself.
Their once-mighty foe at the end of the War in Heaven, the proud Aeldari, had brought about their own ruin through decadence and self-indulgence.
Most crucially, their technology was not even cost-effective enough to justify its widespread adoption.
Aeldari weaponry—from their basic shuriken catapults and crystal rifles, which fired monomolecular discs via gravitic acceleration, to their massive Craftworlds, grav-tanks, wraith constructs, shipborne weapons, and armor—all relied on wraithbone.
Their technology and even their architecture were founded upon psychic engineering. In other words, Aeldari Bonesingers drew psychic energy from the [Warp] to create everything.
Then there were the soulstones—devices that stored the spirits of the dead and powered many of their most essential machines and weapons.
In short, compared to the Imperium of Man's legion of hard-bitten geniuses, the Necrons' physically perfect necrodermis technology, or even the Forge Dwarves' unmatched metallurgy—the Aeldari offered little that Selene found appealing.
Still, since they had traveled so far to present their surrender and loyalty—using Budo as an intermediary to request an audience—Selene decided to give them a chance.
She was not the Emperor, after all.
Especially since the envoy was Yvraine, leader of the Ynnari.
Hmm? You didn't go to Ultramar?
This Aeldari woman—who had once been both an ascetic Craftworlder and a hedonistic Dark Eldar—sparked certain thoughts in Selene's mind that even the Emperor might have called heretical.
The Aeldari matter was temporarily resolved—set aside for now.
Time to continue the cleansing.
Yes... the Orks.
In some forgotten corner of the galaxy—
It was a world utterly infested by Orks.
Scorching winds licked across cracked ochre soil, burning away the last traces of moisture. Dead grass swayed in the heat, lifeless. Everywhere the eye could see, aside from shattered rock, there were only countless Orks roaring in chaotic jubilation.
"Oi! Grokka smashes real good! WAAAGH! He's da best!"
"Snagga cuts da best heads! WAAAGH! Real pro!"
Atop a crude altar made from piles of scrap metal and beast carcasses, a mob of Orks—bigger, greener, and meaner than usual—shouted and bellowed in their guttural dialects.
Among them were Mekboyz, whose cybernetic limbs were cobbled together from junk and steel, and Warbosses—eyes burning with rage and cruelty, waving massive choppas and shootas.
The largest of them all, the greenest of the green, was none other than the Warlord—the Boss of Bosses.
"Oi! I fink all dem humies are squishy gits! Dey's weak, soft, and stupid! Dat shiny gold git wot calls 'imself Emprah—he's been insultin' us! We oughta krump dem humies! Ain't no one bigger an' meaner than me, Grokma da Great!"
"Boss! Boss! Our Attack Moons are gone!!"
A frantic Mek, covered in oil and loose bolts, scrambled before the towering Warlord—whose bulk rivaled an Imperial Titan.
"Ya wot?! Da Meks can't fix da portal—can't ya see I'm talkin' to Mork an' Gork, ya git?! Wait... what did ya just say?! Our..."
The Warlord froze, his bulging eyes snapping open as he looked skyward—where his massive Attack Moons should have been blocking the heavens. But now, the sky was terrifyingly clear and bright.
A massive crimson sphere radiated scorching energy in all directions. Even the Orks, with their limited intellect, could recognize it as something enormous—great among the great, strong among the strong, brutal among the brutal.
Suddenly, the Warlord's bulging eyes widened further, and a terrifying flood of memory from the heavens seared into his mind:
An endless void curtain—a squashed green mass—a scrawny shrieking female writhing in madness—a roaring blood-red colossus—and finally, an even greater purple-red titan laughing thunderously, its mockery echoing across reality. The mighty Gork and Mork, terrified, wounded, fleeing like startled grots.
"...Tch. Orks, everywhere. With greenskin fungus breeding like this, the Imperium was doomed from the start."
Terror seized the Orks' dim minds as they stared upward. A star-god's gaze pierced the heavens, and with that single glance, every spore in the sector disintegrated into gray dust, then fragmented further until only fundamental particles remained.
"Oi... Gork's da kunnin' brutal one, Mork's da brutal kunnin' one... which one's which again?"
The muttering was lost amid the invisible surge of annihilation. Across entire star systems, every trace of the Orks was erased—dissolved, unmade. The Warlord, half his body obliterated, slumped to the ground, and in his fading vision he saw—
A colossal galactic hand, reaching across time and space, plucking two massive green Orkoid beasts from existence as they brawled with each other to the last.
This cesspit was overflowing with trash in need of cleansing.
Above the void, Selene gently tapped her finger along her cleansing and visitation list.
T'au Empire.
Tyranids.
The nightmare hybrids—the Genestealers.
Necrons.
...
"Ah-choo!"
"Hm? My brother, can a Primarch catch a cold? Let me guess—one of your brothers must be speaking ill of you again."
Blue-gray light intermingled with gold sigils. Two immense figures stood within the grand sanctum of Macragge's Imperial Shrine. In the flicker of candlelight, the first to emerge from the shadows was a man whose weary, commanding face bore both strength and sorrow—the Thirteenth Primarch, Roboute Guilliman.
He held in his hands the Book of Holy Words, its irony not lost upon him. Facing the gentle jest of Lorgar Aurelian beside him, Guilliman only shook his head.
"No, Lorgar. You wouldn't understand. You grew up in unity, surrounded by faith and order. I..." His tone hardened. "I saw brother turn against brother. I watched the Emperor's dream collapse."
The Lord of the Five Hundred Worlds spoke in his deep, resonant voice.
"I keep wondering—why am I still alive?"
He glanced at the book, then at Lorgar's calm, clean face.
"I gave everything to Him—to them. And what did they make of my dream? This bloated, rotting Imperium, driven not by reason or hope, but by fear, hatred, and ignorance. Sometimes I think... I should have burned alongside Horus."
Before he could continue, Lorgar placed an arm around his shoulder, his tone gentle yet firm—like that of a preacher guiding a lost soul.
"Do not let the past chain you, my brother. Though I have not spent much time with you, I can feel your humility and your sense of duty. If you despise what the Imperium has become, then change it. Make it better. As the saying goes—borrowing the Valkyrie Corps' motto from Lady Alyssa's forces—'Fight for the beauty of the world.' I believe your potential rivals even Robert's."
Guilliman blinked, curious. "Robert?"
"Our Thirteenth Legion's own Ultramarine Chapter Master," Lorgar replied with a faint smile. "Though I hate to admit it, under his governance, the Ultramarines have become the wealthiest and most disciplined Astartes force—second only to the Dark Angels, Punishers, and Black Templars of the Founding Three."
Guilliman chuckled softly. "Then I suppose the bar is high indeed."
He looked up toward the moonlit sky beyond the great cathedral. The Rift was sealed. The material universe, at last, seemed free from the corruption of daemons.
Lorgar's plan had worked—or at least, it seemed to. And that was enough for Guilliman. One could not ask for more.
He opened his command channel and spoke with calm finality:
"Rally the fleet, my sons. It's time. We're returning to Terra."
"This will be our first gathering in ten thousand years... The Imperium of Man must finally complete its mission—Father."
—
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