Webway, Inner Sanctum
Sanguinius
Sanguinius slowly walked around the chamber in awe, looking at the fragments of metal gods locked here. Compared to the energy they emanated, the power of his father, or even Horus's strengthened by chaos gods, paled. And there were hundreds, if not thousands, of them here.
He looked at the Old Ones questioningly, "How on earth do you keep this power in check, being a mere shadow of your former glory? The shards are not trying to combine?"
"It's not that simple," Prophet replied. "To understand this, you must know the context of Aeglos' creation."
The Primarch nodded, signalling for the other to continue, "Please speak."
"Without going into details. We wanted the Spear of Destiny to be indestructible above all and to be able to contain and transmit a huge amount of energy," Prophet began, then Seeker cut in.
"To do this, we captured three C'tan, at great cost, and fused our psionic powers with their bodies, creating an artefact, while their essence served as an unlimited power generator for it."
"We did not foresee one thing, though," Mind continued, her voice full of irritation mixed with sadness. "That the Yngir, as a final act of rebellion against the fate that was to befall them, created a safeguard. Seven seals that had to be unlocked in order to use the full power of the spear."
Sanguinius had an idea where this was headed. The Old Ones were somehow unable to break or unlock the seals. But what seals could they be, capable of stop divine beings? Or how powerful were these C'tan really?
"What seals are we talking about?" he asked, to which Seeker quickly replied.
"First, you must know that our enemies were incredibly powerful; it would take many of us to even fight one of them. Each of them represented an aspect of the existing reality, a universal force that ruled the universe."
"And these three sealed Aeglos with their own essence, which was also the source of its power. To unlock Six seals it's necessary possess six opposite aspects to their original ones. The seventh requires the Yngir energy to be present, which is a death sentence for all but themselves.
"I understand that this is not possible?" Sanguinius interrupted him.
"No, or at least not in theory, because trying to implant their energy ended with the destruction of the soul of the being subjected to the procedure. But there is one exception. A certain child was, during its creation on Luna, the moon of Terra, tainted by the energy of one of the C'tan - Mag'ladroth, which boils in it constantly, causing, in moments of exceptional mental weakness, an increase in uncontrollable anger, but also enormous strength, the strength coming from the Star Gods." Mind replied.
"Black Rage? So Void Dragon is the reason for its creation? How did it come about?... But what about Red Thirst? Is there some other origin behind it?" He asked, not even knowing what to feel, despite having received an answer to one of the questions that had been bothering him his whole life.
"Yes. It's Black Rage, but it's topic for later. I was talking about Aeglos. Let me finish first with this. So, in order to use the Spear to move through the Webway, it is necessary to break the Seventh Seal, or preferably all seven."
"What are these other seals?" he asked, after a moment, already feeling a slight headache from how twisted it all was.
"Aspects of Valor, Justice, Fate, Hope, Sacrifice, Death. And it's not about you doing something brave or just, but becoming the embodiment of those aspects. The easiest way is the faith of mortal beings." Prophet explained, his voice taking on a much darker tone.
"But you would probably need the faith of your entire empire, identifying you with a given aspect, to become its embodiment. Good luck getting so many beings in this horrible universe to feel hope and justice and identify it with you. It's probably the hardest seals to break. Hope and justice left this galaxy a long time ago."
Sanguinius clutched his head. "Why then did you bring me here in the first place? To show me this artefact and share your history?"
"Calm down, young Sanguinius." Said Prophet. "We had a purpose in bringing you here. When you survived your death and looked into the Well of Eternity, you took a step towards breaking the third and sixth seals, the seals of Fate and Death. For you were fated to die and this was to be the end of your journey. But you broke it." he reassuring him.
"And even earlier, by sacrificing your life to stop your brother, Horus, you also came closer to possibly breaking the fifth seal, Sacrifice. And your Empire of Man does the rest of the work."
"Empire?" he asked, surprised. "What does the Empire have to do with this? If it even still exists. After what I saw happen to the Emperor, I don't know if anything can be salvaged from it."
The Old Ones fell silent for a moment. Finally Mind spoke, "Sanguinius, nearly 1,000 years have passed in the Materium. Time passes differently in the Immaterium than in the real world, and it has taken you a long time to rebuild your soul in its entirety. Additionally, while the Well of Eternity is outside of time, that does not mean you exit it the same moment you entered it."
The Primarch of the Ninth Legion felt as if he had been struck with a sledgehammer. Thousand years? What could have happened in such a long time? Five times as long as the Great Crusade had taken.
Wait, but the Prophet was saying something to the empire doing the rest of the work in connection with the seal of Sacrifice.
"According to your earlier words, I understand that the empire must continue to exist. That means that my brothers have managed to rebuild it." He said aloud, looking at his hosts.
They began to flicker with light, as if feeling nervous.
"We will talk about this later," Mind replied, then added hesitantly, "Let's just say that your empire is in worse shape than before the rebellion, but they did one good thing, especially important to us."
"They immortalised you as the Saint and a symbol of the greatest sacrifice, but also of courage. One could find also traces of the rest of the virtues we need, such as justice or hope, but not enough."
"Exactly." Seeker agreed. "You could probably break the seal of Sacrafice, but you're too weak for that right now. You need to regain at least your former strength."
Sanguinius had much to think about; meanwhile, his mind turned to the incredibly powerful C'tan shards present in the chamber. He looked at the Old Ones.
"Are you really weakened? How on earth were you able to gather such a large number of Shards? From what I understand, most of them were supposed to be hidden by the Necrons."
"Yes, but the Necrons and also the Shards were asleep." The Seeker replied, "We didn't enter the Necrons tombs through the main entrance but sneaked in like a thief in the night. Plus, you forget that there is nothing in this galaxy that can hide from me. Sooner or later I will find it."
The pride and self-satisfaction seething from the ancient being made Sanguinius wonder for a moment which of them was the deity several dozen million years old.
"All these shards belong to one Yngir or does each chamber hide one of them?" He asked, approaching one of the tanks, where the shards suddenly began to swirl wildly, as if sensing him.
"Caution," Mind warned, flying over to him. "Even though they are dormant, they are still semi-sentient and your energy resonates with them. Aeglos can absorb their power, but that doesn't mean they can't sense you and automatically reach your mind."
"As for your question, each tank holds a different Star God. I won't tell you about each one, at least not now. But the tank you're standing in front of and the two to your left hold the worst of them. Aza'gorod, the Nightbringer, was the first C'tan the Necrons encountered. Mephet'ran, the Deceiver, was the one who tricked them and was really the trigger for the entire war."
"But the one before you was the mightiest of them all. A true beast among monsters. Mag'ladroth, the Void Dragon. The one whose energy is already flowing within you."
"Let his power be seen in the fact that your father fought a single fragment of him on Mars and was only able to imprison him back in his tomb. On top of that, the Dragon manipulated the entire human Mechanicum, as you call it, into worshipping him as this Omnissiah."
Sanguinius suddenly turned to her, surprise written all over his heavenly face. One of the C'tan shards is hidden on Mars? And is worshipped by those stupid Martians? As if he didn't have enough reason to hate those psychos.
He fell into deep thought, letting his mind quickly analyse everything he had learnt. However, what he was coming up with didn't fill him with enthusiasm. Prophet and the other two had their own agenda and planned to use him in some way. And he was tired of being someone's pawn. No more.
"For what purpose do you do all this? To defeat the chaos, C'tan? That is the question that troubles me the most. If I am to serve your purposes, I must know them. I will not simply become your tool." Sanguinius' voice left no doubt that he expected an answer, and if it did not satisfy him he will leve, they might try to stop him.
"The Prophet flickered slightly, as if sighing. "We did not show you all this, my boy, to make you our pawn. This is our attempt at redemption, to repair what we have helped to destroy after all."
"Exactly," Mind admitted, "We helped create the unwilling gods of chaos, and now we want to help create someone who could resist them and also Yngir, if they ever broke free from their prisons and regained their former power."
"You want to make me some kind of god? It would go against everything the Empire stood for and everything my father dreamed of."
"Sanguinius, the Emperor's dream has always been just a dream. There have been, are, and will always be divine beings in this galaxy. To close your eyes and hope that the world will conform to your own imaginings is not only foolish but pathetic," the Seeker said with contempt, then added, "We have learnt this the hard way. We believed in peace and coexistence, only to be met with the reality of war and brutality beyond all imagination."
The Primarch couldn't disagree with those words, for he himself had similar many times. And if they offered him the power to bring Chaos to its knees and perhaps the power to save his sons from the curses that were destroying them, he would gladly accept it. So that he would never again have to feel the helplessness he felt, especially on Sigmus Prime and Terra.
"So what's the plan? What I have to do and what steps do I need to take?"
"The first step must be to make you stronger. Your path to godhood has already begun when humans began to worship you as a saint of the Empire, but you will need much more human and not only faith but also your own actions, personifying the aspects we need." Seeker explained, his glowing figure radiating visible excitement. Their plans were finally coming into motion after millions of years.
"So I suggest you go into the Immaterium and hunt down lesser demons or other creatures that inhabit it to absorb their energy."
"Wait a moment." Sanguinius interrupted him, "What do you mean by absorbing their energy? Is that even possible and safe?"
"What do you think your Red Thirst is? It's not a physical condition; it's a psionic one. A curse and a blessing in one from Khorne." The Prophet replied, leaving him stunned.
"You mean... you mean that by drinking blood I absorb the energy of the being?" he asked in disbelief. It seemed that he had been searching for a cure for a misdiagnosed problem all along. "So what? I have to bite into the demon's body and drink its blood? I don't know if I could even do that."
"Eh. No, no." Mind sighed. "We've discussed this much among ourselves, and we've come to the conclusion that you should be able to, upon a demon's death in the warp or banishment, absorb the energy using your psionic powers."
"And as for developing yours power, we'll start training as well, and I'll teach you techniques of my people, but that will take years to master, even with your keen mind. Well, but we have to start somewhere."
"If that's settled, I'd like to know what's happening with the Empire and my brothers, as well as what happened to my father after he was placed on the Golden Throne. I think I've been patient long enough." Sanguinius spoke, his tone reflecting his impatience. It wasn't that he didn't want to learn all the secrets the Old Ones had revealed to him, but his heart yearned to know what happened to his brothers, sons, and the people of the Empire.