Warhammer: Starting as a Planetary Governor

Chapter 780 - 779: Horus: Ahhh, What Is This Cold Violence? You Really Are a Beast, Savior!

[New Fanfic: Arcane: Welcome To Zaun]"How pitiful you are. All you can do is watch me destroy everything you built, yet remain powerless to stop it..."

The commander of the Chaos coalition, Horus the Dark Emperor, sensed the Savior's faint aura and immediately began mocking him.

That was the standard procedure when two powerful beings crossed paths.

When both sides exchanged words, they usually opened with a few formal lines, announced themselves, or traded insults, all to raise their own morale or suppress the other side's momentum.

Horus simply wanted to use the moment of his overwhelming strategic advantage to thoroughly crush the Savior's authority.

He never let a chance to weaken an enemy go to waste.

Huh?

Eden's projected consciousness was a little dazed. He had only just hacked his way in and had no idea what was happening.

Just as humanity used blackstone devices to lock down the void around Holy Terra, the Chaos Gods had also sealed off vast regions of the Solar System. Even observation and remote probing had become incredibly difficult.

He had no way of knowing what was happening inside the blocked regions or what things looked like in there, which had been worrying him badly.

To learn the state of the Holy Terra defenses, Eden had gone through a great deal of effort to use the authority of the Sun of Hope to tear open a tiny gap, then quietly slip a projected fragment of his consciousness into one sector of the Solar System.

But he had barely gotten in and was just about to take a look at the Iron Wall when some random bastard started mocking him out of nowhere, leaving him completely baffled.

Eden found it all rather inexplicable. Had someone just insulted him? He did not think he had even done anything yet.

Then he turned and communicated with a certain someone, asking a question straight from the soul.

"Old G, who's this pitch-black dumbass?

"Hah, that's Horus? I thought it was somebody else. Looks like he got puffed up by the Chaos Gods again. Honestly, he doesn't even seem that imposing..."

Eden's projected consciousness muttered back and forth with Guilliman, sounding genuinely surprised.

There was no helping it. He had left the Solar System before the campaign began and had never actually seen what Horus looked like. On top of that, Horus had undergone extreme daemonic transformation, his entire body wrapped in warped armor and black warp-energy.

More importantly, the man looked kind of exhausted. His face was pale, he had dark circles under his eyes, and his ferocious eyes were full of bloodshot veins.

Guilliman had once handled years of nonstop high-intensity state affairs and still had not ended up looking that ragged.

So who would have guessed that this shabby-looking wreck was the Dark Emperor Horus from the intelligence reports?

That was just how it was.

Horus had been commanding beyond his limits the whole time. Through supreme strategic artistry and absolute control of the battlefield, he had stabilized the situation and was even faintly suppressing Imperial forces that outnumbered the Chaos army several times over.

If it had been any other primarch, he would already have collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

Eden and Guilliman kept chattering to each other, and in the process, Eden completely forgot to respond to Horus's provocation.

This was basically the same as reading someone's message, refusing to reply, and then mocking him in a private chat.

Worse, because of the effects of the long-distance psychic projection, the contents of their conversation echoed out very clearly.

Especially that line, "dumbass." It practically boomed through the warp like it was being blasted over a loudspeaker, complete with repeated echoes.

The sound lingered beautifully.

???

The fallen primarchs and greater daemons all paused when they heard the warp's rippling transmission.

Then they turned to look at Horus in surprise.

The mighty Dark Emperor had just been publicly humiliated by the Savior, directly and without the slightest mercy. The man had opened with a killing blow right to the face.

So that legendary Savior really did have some vicious skill when it came to provoking people.

Horus had always cultivated an image of himself as invincible before everyone else. Other than the Emperor Himself, he treated everyone as though they were nothing.

As though the whole galaxy contained no one worthy of being his opponent.

And now, in his first clash with the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, he had been coldly ignored and openly insulted.

It was a direct slap to the face.

That level of humiliation was almost on par with Rogal Dorn's earlier line: stop feinting.

Horus took one humiliation crit after another, all while enduring the eyes of everyone around him.

He almost cracked on the spot.

Fortunately, he regained control of himself quickly. Even though the heat in his heart was rising fast, he still maintained a composed bearing.

That was the poise of a king.

"Savior, do you think such despicable tactics will provoke me?"

Horus let out a cold laugh.

Staring into a certain patch of void, warp-energy surged across his towering daemonic body and radiated overwhelming intimidation.

"Too bad. Everything you are doing is meaningless. It cannot alter the outcome on Terra. The collapse of the Iron Wall is a fate that can no longer be reversed!"

The force of that warp-energy was so great that even the fallen primarchs and greater daemons nearby could not help but feel wary.

In one stroke, he restored the morale he had lost and once again radiated terrifying dominance.

And yet after Horus finished speaking, all he received in return was the Savior's prolonged silence.

At that moment, Eden's projected consciousness was simply standing there looking toward Horus, wearing a smile whose meaning could not be read.

He gave no answer at all.

What came off him instead was a cold, wordless disdain, an indescribable act of ignoring that struck straight at the heart.

Even Horus himself could feel the intense humiliation of being ignored and treated with utter indifference. He froze where he stood for a moment.

The fury inside him became harder and harder to suppress, and his terrifying daemonic body trembled faintly.

Not just Horus. Any high-ranking being in either the galaxy or the warp would have found such merciless humiliation difficult to bear.

Only by washing away that shame and utterly crushing the one who inflicted it could they ever calm the fire in their hearts.

"Savior, is this silence really your answer? Do you foolishly think that by doing nothing, you can stop this slaughter?"

Warp-fire ignited in Horus's eyes.

He raised his daemonic sword and pointed it into the void, toward the region where Eden's projected consciousness stood, assuming an ancient gesture of challenge.

It was a duel invitation.

"How interesting. If you coward still possess even a shred of courage, then come before me and fight me in a true duel, a duel to the death!

"Let us see who wins that duel. Let us see who the true king really is. Between us, only one will remain alive.

"That one will be me. Horus Lupercal, the Dark Emperor!"

It was obvious that Horus had finally been enraged beyond endurance. He had issued a duel challenge to the Savior, one that would not end until one of them died.

The meaning he sent could be summed up in only one way:

I may have ignored you before, but from this moment onward, you are the enemy of me, the Dark Emperor.

There cannot be room for both of us in this galaxy and in the warp. One of us must fall, and only the true king of mankind will remain.

Horus's loathsome voice reverberated through this section of the battlefield and out into the warp, filling all who heard it with dread.

The warp-energy pouring off his body formed a dark storm that shook the soul.

Even the warp itself churned violently. It was intimidation directed at the Savior and at every onlooker present.

Anyone could feel how terrifying this Dark Emperor was, and the gazes of those watching gradually became more restrained.

No one wanted to provoke such a powerful creature of Chaos.

And yet Horus's challenge and threat seemed unable to spark even the slightest interest in the Savior. Instead, Eden's projected consciousness drifted a little closer.

He seemed to be trying to get a clearer look at something. His gaze held an uncertain sort of puzzlement, and he even scratched his head.

As though, in his eyes, the Dark Emperor was nothing more than some court clown putting on a performance, too insignificant to be worth taking seriously.

No matter how Horus threatened him or proclaimed himself, the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, could not even be bothered to properly speak to him.

He was just that cold.

It felt like an entirely new form of humiliation, one so icy that it gave rise to a fury no one could suppress.

The atmosphere at the scene became even more awkward, and the momentum of the Chaos beings faltered.

"Sa-vior, answer me!" Horus stared at the Savior and roared with both hands raised high in fury.

The shockwave generated by his daemonic might nearly destroyed everything nearby. Even one greater daemon was blown over because it could not withstand it.

That was how terrifying he was.

And yet the Savior still did not react. Wearing that puzzled expression, he continued to ignore Horus completely while fiddling with something.

At that same time, aboard the Eternal Soul, Eden stared in confusion at the blurry, muted image in front of him, slapped at empty air a few times, and muttered in frustration:

"Tsk. Looks like the signal's pretty bad. What exactly is Horus getting so worked up about...?"

Sure enough, trying to penetrate the heavily sealed Solar System from afar was still too difficult. Even using power properly was hard. The best solution was still to get there in person.

Besides, the old Emperor needed the Eternal Soul's technology to repair the Golden Throne.

"How bad is it, brother?" Guilliman looked over and asked worriedly.

"The situation isn't good. I'm afraid the old Emperor is about to lose control. We have to get back before that happens..."

Eden shook his head and let out a long sigh.

"If we can't make it back in time, then all we can do is hope Horus manages to break into the Palace. That bastard probably has some way of dealing with the Golden Throne's runaway power."

The Savior's words made Guilliman pause for a moment. He wanted to say something, but in the end chose silence.

No matter what, compared to the Emperor, their father, fully losing control and dragging humanity into the abyss...

Letting Horus enter the Palace and seal or strip away that father's power might well be the better outcome.

According to Eden's analysis, the best-case scenario was still for them to return in time and use the Eternal Soul's technology to solve the Golden Throne's instability.

The second-best outcome was that, if they could not return before the Emperor fully lost control, Horus would enter the Palace and help seal the Emperor's runaway power. Both the Imperium and the Chaos Gods wanted to stop the Emperor from losing control.

The worst-case outcome was that Eden could not make it back, while the Chaos Gods and Horus were also blocked by the Iron Wall or the Palace and could not reach the Golden Throne.

If the old Emperor's loss of control worsened, then He would inevitably seize control of some Custodians or summon the Legion of the Damned into realspace to protect Himself, turning the Palace into His own domain.

The fifth god of the warp, Big E, was not just some joke.

"Sigh. I just can't figure out how the Chaos Gods and Horus dared attack my defenses with so few troops."

Eden frowned in puzzlement and rubbed his chin, his expression growing more and more severe.

"If they dared launch such a loud and grand offensive, then they must be confident of victory. Most likely they've hidden a major Chaos force somewhere, or maybe they've acquired some kind of terrifying artifact.

"This time, our losses are probably going to be pretty serious..."

While he was thinking, the projected fragment of consciousness he had cast onto the Iron Wall came under even greater pressure and was almost at its limit.

He could no longer maintain it.

Once Eden had obtained the intelligence he wanted, he stopped forcing it and directly severed the connection to the Iron Wall.

At the same time...

Over in Sector Eight, Horus stood there frozen, staring blankly at the disappearing projected consciousness of the Savior.

He had been pushed so far into rage and frustration that a faint glimmer of tears flashed in his eyes, only to be evaporated immediately by the warp-flames.

For the first time ever, he even felt a trace of confusion, a crack of self-doubt born from that unprecedented disregard and humiliation.

The Savior's blatant emotional cold violence had left the Dark Emperor questioning his own life.

All the beings watching, whether high-ranking human warriors, fallen primarchs, or Chaos daemons, were marveling at the Savior's sheer dominance.

He had forcibly suppressed the Dark Emperor's momentum.

Horus drew in a deep breath, wanting to say something more, but the Savior had already cut the connection on his own.

That left the last breath of Horus's fury trapped in his chest with nowhere to go.

The Dark Emperor went fully red-hot, utterly at a loss.

The Savior had not only delivered extreme emotional cold violence, he had also hit him with a whole round of output, then hung up and blocked him without leaving him any room to retaliate.

"Good. Good. Very good..."

Horus suddenly laughed too, black light leaking through the gaps in his teeth. The sound was uglier than crying, and under the red glow his face looked hideously twisted.

He completely lost control, sweeping his sword out and releasing terrifying flames that carved a hateful scar several miles long across the platform.

The Dark Emperor then charged toward the core defense line with his blade in hand. Every shell fired at him melted into iron sludge, Titan war engines toppled, and a breach was smashed straight through a city wall dozens of meters high.

As he howled, his voice shook the battlefield.

"Savior, then let the galaxy speak for you.

"I will tear down Terra's walls and make loudspeakers from them, and let blood and death answer you in your place.

"I will make every star in the galaxy fear this slaughter.

"Watch well. This fallen defensive line and these extinguished lives will be the first gift I offer you!"

While personally taking the field, Horus's mind also remained in a state of extreme overdrive.

He issued more than a million orders, mobilizing every Chaos army and launching savage assaults against every sector of the Iron Wall at any cost.

New Longlin was also primed and ready, prepared to launch its full assault the moment Sector Eight fell and cut off Imperial reinforcements.

That would allow Horus and the core Chaos forces to surge along the designated line straight toward Terra itself.

Under such a ferocious attack, the Imperial defenders were left overwhelmed. Even Rogal Dorn, the man directing the defense, could barely keep up. His brain heated under high-speed calculation until it felt like his skull might split open.

It was too complicated.

That traitor Horus was moving armies in a manner so terrifying that Dorn simply could not keep up. He could not even determine the man's true intentions.

The gap in their command abilities was obvious at a glance.

"Big brother... I lost..."

Rogal Dorn felt a deep sense of defeat. He had failed the Savior's expectations and had lost, in command itself, to the Chaos warlord, the Dark Emperor Horus.

That defeat would lead to even greater losses for the Imperium.

"The line can't be held. Initiate the damage-control contingency plan. Order the troops to withdraw immediately to secure positions."

Dorn looked toward Tarko and made the decision in a voice gone hoarse.

There was no other choice.

In the giant defensive platform of Sector Eight, several troop transports rose into the air, fleeing toward the rear under Chaos fire.

On one bridge, a commander stared at the burning defensive platform and could not stop himself from choking up, tears running down his face.

"Savior... this is the shame of our Fifteenth Army Group..."

It was not just him. The other soldiers also clenched their fists and lowered their heads in silence. If not for their orders, they would rather have lived and died with their positions.

Rather than retreating in humiliation beneath the threat of Chaos.

In the void, several warships fell at an angle and smashed into the platform, erupting into mushroom clouds like nuclear explosions.

The shockwave spread outward, and the heat gusted Horus's black cloak up behind him.

Against the blaze, his figure looked like that of an invincible king.

At the same time, still more defensive platforms were falling.

Burning away his own talent in a state of towering rage, Horus used command skill beyond his limits to crush at least ten times as many Imperial defenders in one stroke.

They were forced to scatter and flee in rout.

That gave the Chaos coalition an advantage beyond imagination, and the other fallen primarchs and greater daemons looked upon him with awe.

This was true command artistry, the mastery of war itself. Even if the Savior had been here, he would have had no choice but to bow at the Dark Emperor's feet.

Who could stand against him?

Horus advanced steadily, discarding his damaged daemon blade. In its place, Worldbreaker, the great hammer symbolizing darkness and dominion, appeared once more in his hand.

Boom.

With one lift of Worldbreaker, several loathsome beams of flaming light descended and utterly destroyed the final core fortress.

Immediately afterward, the blackstone suppression barrier in this war zone shattered completely. More darkness flooded inward, and the landscape behind the Iron Wall finally came into view.

"Father, after ten thousand years, I am finally about to set foot in your Palace again."

Horus stared at the sight before him, his twisted face full of anticipation and yearning.

That was Terra.

"For the Dark Emperor!"

The Chaos beings stared at that blue throne-world, the heart of the Imperium now about to be trampled by darkness, and could not help raising their weapons and shouting.

Their momentum was unstoppable.

At that moment, Horus's will to battle and his prestige both climbed to a new peak.

He raised Worldbreaker, just about to issue the next order, when he suddenly saw the retreating Imperial ships crash through some kind of veil.

And the sight exposed behind that veil left every Chaos being gaping in disbelief.

Horus himself began trembling all over.

Even his liver started to shake.

(End of Chapter)

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