A servant of Holy Terra has fallen.
This universe is dark and filled with nightmares. I have lived among them for as long as I have known. I have been a nightmare, or so I thought. I have overthrown empires with my bare hands, I have decapitated tyrannical champions of the archenemy, I have visited Holy devastation upon Xenos worlds. I have been involved in the deaths of hundreds of millions, if not billions of mankind’s enemies. I once thought myself great, and worthy of note or remembrance, that perhaps my name might be cause for the dark self-proclaimed-gods of the archenemy to quiver. But it is not the scale, or the quantity of deaths, that draws their ire, but rather the caliber of the person enacting such destruction upon their forces. And if I am great, then Callant Blackgar was legendary.
I say was, because a servant of Holy Terra has fallen.
He is alive, still, but I am not so naïve as to believe that he will ever be who he once was—the man I had once loved so dearly. I still love him, even as the vile darkness within him has begun to leak out. But I know, deep in my wounded heart, that Callant Blackgar has departed, never to return to the way he was. The legend is dead, the fire gone. How could a man be asked to return to the life that had been after having lost so much, and so brutally? I cannot ask that of him, and I would take the heads of those that might dare.
And yet, the Inquisition claims its victory. Victory! As humanity rages against the dying of the light! Victory, because Ouranos is dead, slain by Inquisitor Blackgar. And yes, the task therein was an impossible one, that no other man—and indeed, not even me myself—could have accomplished, not a human, nor Astartes, nor Son of the Emperor, I’d wager. But I am not so foolish as to believe that it was anyone other than Ouranos that emerged victorious, that bastard. Ouranos and Blackgar went toe-to-toe, in a typhonic cataclysm which I can only begin to guess at, and in the end, Blackgar ‘survived’ and Ouranos perished. But life is not life that is not lived, and Ouranos had always wanted to orchestrate his own demise. The enemy got everything they wanted, and we were left bloodied and broken, for those of us that survived at all.
This was no victory. This may have been the most crushing defeat the Imperium had ever known, were it not for the fact that we have also just lost Cadia. And yet our daft peers would be so arrogant as to believe in their own triumphs, or that the archenemy was backpedaling from our retributive campaigns. No, the foe meets us head-on, as ever we have faced them so, but now they are beginning to break us. I do not write of this to be a doomsayer or fearmonger, but if I deny myself the recognition of my enemy’s victories, I may as well just throw in the towel and surrender to them now. And I will not give up that easily, destined supremacy be damned.
Yes, the Despoiler’s plan succeeded. Ouranos has triumphed. It looks as though Cronos is soon to find victory as well. But if Cronos thinks the war is already won, it is destined only to be sorely mistaken. If it costs me my life, and it very well may, I will make the daemon rue the day it chose to torment Callant Blackgar. I do not think I am smart enough to beat the daemon outright; that is where Inquisitor Trantos comes in. But I know I am potent enough to put up a fight, and in that, I will buy Trantos whatever time she needs to learn how to kill the bastard, permanently. Admittedly, I know, as Cronos likely does, that Silas is neither a combative threat nor a strategic one. However, I have also learned not to underestimate the Scion; Blackgar had a habit, it seems, of surrounding himself with the best, and Silas is no exception. Whatever role Silas Hager is to play in what’s to come, I am certain it will be a vital one, to Callant as much as to the Imperium.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Cronos is going to lose. Hard. We three will ensure it, even if it is the last victory mankind knows before the dark takes us all.
I am so sorry, Callant. I will make this right. You deserve that, and better.
- B
***
Brothers mine, can you see it? Taste it? Hear it? The Long Dark has ended, and the roar of stars reveals itself to us once more. Our wait is over. Ouranos is dead, and his killers are weak and scattered. Already, my unwitting Agent is in position to commence the next stage of our plan, and I groom a disciple of Iron lest things go awry.
Let boiling blood run across the skies. Let flesh slough off bone in putrefaction. Let our exquisite creation bloom anew! We are the Chosen of the Divine Pantheon, rightful heirs to Chaos itself! We are the Undivided Cataclysm, and there are none that can oppose the plagued viscera we gift to all reality!
Lesser races bicker between and amongst themselves of the right to rule. Tired machines wrestle with a hungry maw. Barbarous fungus spreads like vermin across the stars, culled at the edges by the naïve and the dying. The Empyrean demands the sacrifice of all these trillions, and we must answer, for only within the currents of its vast oceans does true destiny lay. Let our allied envoys among these races draw the ire of their heritage, while we work in thankless shadows to bring them all to the ends they deserve.
Mordefir, issue our challenge from the Gods. May all who contest it bleed upon your boots and break upon your axes. Lunacius, scout us our most worthy of adversaries for our most perfect sacrifice. Let they be loyal to the false-gods of this land, and ensure their fervor and zealotry unmatched. Galpalos, let us continue our work together, dear bloodkin mine. May our Gift be Everchanging, that it may bestow upon reality the infinite wonders of our birthright.
On my life as sister to our Cataclysm, I am Veralith, Unmaker of Fate, and our time has come to plunge this galaxy into Chaos eternal.
For the Empyrean!