[Then, when the Emperor descended upon his Planet with Ferrus, Lorgar, Dorn, and Fulgrim.]
[Then Konrad Curze's precognitive ability activated, and he saw the fate of everyone.]
[Ferrus's head was taken by another; Lorgar roared against a burning sky amidst psychic light; Dorn was dragged into the darkness by countless hands to die, each hand stained with Dorn's blood.]
[Only Fulgrim's future was the most blurred, a serpentine creature laughing wildly.]
[Then Konrad Curze saw the Emperor. Pain struck.]
[In agonizing pain, Konrad Curze knelt on the ground, clutching his face tightly.]
[the Emperor walked up, touched Konrad Curze's head, and said, "Do not panic, Konrad Curze. I have found you; I am here to take you home."]
[At the Emperor's touch, all of Konrad Curze's pain vanished. He stood up and said, "That is not me. My people gave me a name; I am the midnight shade."]
[Now comes the key point: for Konrad Curze, 'the midnight shade' and 'Konrad' held different meanings.]
[This was also Konrad Curze's most internal point of conflict. On one side, he was the midnight shade, born from darkness and acting only for justice.]
[On the other side was Konrad Curze, who possessed humanity, loathing his own actions while simultaneously loving them.]
[His later resentment toward the Emperor also centered on this part.]
[Konrad Curze believed the Emperor was omniscient and omnipotent.]
[Then why assign him the role of bearing all the evil of this era, yet still grant him humanity to make him suffer?]
["Why could you not let me become the pure midnight shade?"]
[The divergence in their views can be seen from the conversation between the two.]
[Konrad Curze's original intention was to be a bloodless, tearless judge, but he was troubled by his own desires and believed humanity was a weakness, so he refuted the Emperor's words.]
[But from the Emperor's perspective, humanity is necessary for a judge, because judgment is essentially killing; only with a process of self-repentance can one ensure they do not stray from the righteous path.]
[Let's compare him to Corax. Corax defined his killing as liberation, while Konrad Curze saw it as suppression. To the average person, there is indeed a gap between the two.]
[Though from the perspective of the Warhammer Universe, the World after Konrad Curze's suppression is more practical.]
"So that's how it is..." Horus's voice was the first to break the silence.
"Our little brother was a broken mirror from the very beginning—one side reflecting justice, the other refracting madness."
Sanguinius's wings slowly folded. "How ironic... the humanity Father gave him was meant to be an anchor, yet it became the chains that tortured him."
The Angel's voice made the light in the hall turn soft.
"He loathed the pleasure he felt when killing, yet he indulged in it—this is more heartbreaking than simple madness."
"A snake... that snake..."
Fulgrim's voice was the first to break the silence. He pointed at the screen that had gone dark, his handsome face, which always pursued perfection, twisted in fear.
He neurotically stroked his arm, as if cold scales had already grown there.
"Father! Is that my future? You saw it, didn't you? You saw it long ago!"
"Heartbreaking? Ha!" Angron's wild laughter, twisted by the Butcher's Nails, rang out, filled with malicious glee.
"Look at this pathetic wretch! At least he can still feel pain!"
"My dear brother Konrad Curze, he's just feeling a little 'discomfort' over his work, while I have to endure these damned nails day and night!"
He pointed to his temple, scoffing at Konrad Curze's "pain."
"He's just an executioner who knows how to cry!"
"His question is critical."
Horus's voice was low and powerful. He ignored Angron's mockery, examining the issue from the perspective of the Warmaster.
"From a design standpoint, this is a flaw. Why create a tool that loathes its own function? It is illogical and extremely unstable."
"Because a pure 'midnight shade',"
A grand and cold voice echoed throughout the hall, coming not from the screen, but from the Golden Throne.
the Emperor spoke.
There was no comfort in his voice, no pity, only an unquestionable majesty that dissected facts.
"A pure, bloodless, tearless judge—his ultimate end would be far more terrifying than any scene you can imagine."
the Emperor raised his hand, and a vision constructed of psychic energy instantly seized everyone's minds.
It was a mountain range piled high with skulls, with a sea of blood surging beneath it.
A massive shadow shrouded in tattered bloody robes, its human form long gone, was wielding chainswords and bone claws, engaged in an eternal and meaningless Carnage.
It was not a living being, but a pure manifestation of the concept of killing.
"Do you see?" the Emperor's voice was like a layer of winter ice. "This is a 'pure' judge."
A perfect killing machine without the shackles of humanity. He would no longer kill for justice, but for the sake of killing itself. Khorne's most beloved is this very thing."
The vision vanished, but the extreme scent of blood seemed to linger in the air.
"His 'foresight' is a poison, not a gift."
the Emperor continued to explain, his voice cold as iron. "Without that part of Konrad Curze's humanity—the doubt, the fear, and the self-loathing."
"The 'midnight shade' would not question any future he saw. He would view Ferrus's death and Dorn's fall as established facts."
"And then he would contentedly become a lackey of 'fate', even actively seeking out powers that could help him 'realize' these prophecies."
the Emperor's gaze swept over each of his sons, finally landing on the pained figure of Konrad Curze.
"The humanity I gave him was not a gift, but shackles. It was meant to anchor him, the final insurance to prevent him from being completely consumed by those dark prophecies."
"As for the price—his pain, his resentment..."
the Emperor paused, a trace of fatigue that no one could perceive flashing in his eyes that transcended time.
"I shall bear it."
Silence fell over the hall once again.
This time, it was a chilling silence after understanding that cold logic.
This was not a warm explanation between father and sons, but a cold report on the design of a weapon.
"The logic holds."
Dorn was the first to speak, his voice like grinding stone, devoid of any emotion.
"Setting necessary safety redundancies for a volatile weapon is correct. It ensures it will not cause greater destruction when it loses control."
"A clumsy design."
Perturabo let out a disdainful sneer.
"A truly perfect creation should be stable in its own right."
"Rather than relying on a 'patch' that causes constant internal friction to maintain itself. This only proves that the original design was flawed."
"You are discussing design and logic?"
A voice filled with fury and mercy rang out.
Vulkan, the master craftsman who loved humanity, stood up from his seat, his massive frame trembling slightly with anger.
"We are talking about our brother! A soul submerged in pain!"
"Shouldn't a father strive to heal his son's wounds, rather than treating that pain as a machine part? What kind of insurance is this? What kind of design? This is cruelty!"
"Cruel, but effective."
The Primarch of the Death Guard, Mortarion's voice was as raspy as a shroud. He leaned against his throne, filled with loathing for the Emperor's psychic vision.
"Father uses lies to fight lies, using one set of shackles to lock another."
"He claims to bear the price, but the ones truly paying it are the corpses of Nostramo and Konrad Curze's restless soul."
"This isn't some great design; it's just a delayed, inevitable rotting wound."
A low voice, like a night wind, came from the shadows.
The master of the Raven Guard, Corax's figure seemed to blend into the darkness.
"We all walk in the shadows, Konrad, but the directions we choose are starkly different."
There was a hint of resonance and severance in his voice that no one else could understand.
"I use fear to break the chains of tyrants, while he uses fear to forge stronger cages."
"I bring whispers of liberation to the oppressed, while he brings screams of slow execution to the desperate."
"Father, you were wrong."
"The humanity you left him was not an anchor to stop his fall, but a mirror that allowed him to clearly realize he had become a monster."
"That is the source of his madness, not the cure."
"Cages..."
The Primarch of the White Scars, Jaghatai Khan, let out a disdainful chuckle.
He sat cross-legged in his place, as if he were outside all these arguments.
"All I see are cages. Konrad Curze built a cage for his World, and Father built one for Konrad Curze's soul."
"And here you are, arguing whether the craftsmanship of this cage is exquisite or clumsy. Truly... it reeks of Terra."
He looked up, his gaze sharp as a blade.
"Has no one asked if that bird was meant to soar in the sky?"
Sanguinius let out a long sigh; he understood, but that understanding made him even sadder.
"A shield forged from pain... Father, this price is too heavy."
Russ appeared somewhat irritable; he scratched his head and muttered in a low voice:
"So... his current madness is to prevent him from becoming even madder?"
"What kind of convoluted nonsense is this!"
The Wolf King disliked such complex logic, but he sincerely loathed the vision of the Blood God from earlier and could not refute it.
Horus knit his brows, remaining silent for a long time. As the Warmaster, he understood the weight of terms like "necessary sacrifice" and "acceptable price" better than anyone.
the Emperor's explanation was strategically flawless, but that absolute rationality, which clearly calculated even his son's pain, gave him a chill from the bottom of his heart.
He suddenly understood.
In Father's eyes, perhaps they were never "sons" in the true sense of the word.
They were tools. They were weapons.
Some tools were hammers, some were swords, and Konrad Curze was a bomb designed to harm itself, fitted with a safety device.
His pain was that safety device.
If Konrad Curze could be like this... then were any of them just parts in some grand blueprint that could be sacrificed, tortured, and twisted at any time?
This thought, like a most malicious seed, was quietly planted in the Warmaster's heart.
It was more lethal than any whisper from the Warp.