Chapter 534: The Rebellion Begins

When Magnus's spine snapped and agony flooded through him, he immediately understood:

He could no longer resist.

From the corner of his remaining eye, he saw the despair on his sons' faces—grief, helplessness, resignation.

"..."

His heart tightened.

He knew that his choices were gone.

Even knowing he was walking into an obvious trap, he had no alternative.

He could only jump.

"I accept your terms!"

His anguished roar echoed across both reality and the Warp.

In the Crystal Labyrinth, the Realm of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways sneered with contempt.

With a casual gesture, He released a sliver of power into the material universe.

In the next instant, Leman Russ felt an overwhelming force erupt from Magnus's body.

It was as if he'd been clinging to a swelling star—utterly impossible to hold.

The broken Primarch was torn from his grip.

Before the stunned eyes of every Space Wolf and Thousand Son, Magnus's body rapidly mutated—sprouting eldritch limbs and warping into something no longer human.

Simultaneously, more than a thousand streams of raw Warp power erupted from his soul, pouring into each surviving Thousand Son.

Tzeentch's power swept over them like a tidal wave.

In a single moment:

They were dragged into the Warp,

Their forms rewritten,

Their bodies reshaped into beings more suited for survival in the immaterium.

When the light faded—

Magnus and all surviving sons were gone.

Only ruins remained.

Only silence.

Only blood.

---

Soon after, forward command received a report from Leman Russ.

Horus listened with a solemn expression.

"I see. So Magnus truly turned to xenos powers—and caused that disaster on Terra.

Return to the Tanakreg system and rest for a while."

He ended the call.

The moment the transmission died, Horus allowed himself a thin smile.

All it had taken was a simple alteration in one of the Emperor's orders.

With that, he had successfully forced the strongest psyker among the Primarchs into the camp of Chaos.

A very satisfying outcome.

He had even crafted a convenient excuse to send Russ away—buying valuable time for his next move.

But as other matters came to mind, his smile slowly faded.

To Horus, both the Emperor and the Chaos Gods were equally untrustworthy.

Neither had mankind's best interests at heart.

And watching his brothers fall, one after another, into ruin or corruption, he felt a growing sense of wariness.

Even if he replaced the Emperor…

How would he prevent the Warp's influence from infecting the Imperium afterward?

On this point, father and son were alike:

Both were skilled at discarding tools once they served their purpose.

The only difference was that Horus, at least, still possessed some sliver of humanity.

If it were possible, he would not mind saving his corrupted brothers someday—pulling them free of Chaos's grasp.

---

Months passed.

Through subtle hints and repeated testing, the traitor Primarchs quietly purged their Legions—rooting out loyalists and eliminating them one by one.

And finally, preparations were complete.

The rebellion began.

Their first step:

Strike the loyalist Legions from within.

The Word Bearers, following Horus's instructions, joined forces with the Ultramarines under the pretense of advancing the Great Crusade together.

But the Word Bearers had never forgotten their hatred.

They seized the moment when the Ultramarines relaxed their vigilance—and launched a brutal surprise attack.

The Ultramarines suffered devastating losses.

Their Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, was ambushed by Lorgar using a blade blessed by Orsaga—severely wounded and captured alive.

For a Primarch who once seemed so weak, Lorgar had grown frighteningly competent at betrayal under Orsaga's influence.

Three other loyalist Legions were similarly devastated by sudden assaults.

By the time the Imperium realized what was happening, nearly two-thirds of its military strength had already been shattered.

The traitor Astartes and countless Imperial Army regiments rose up, shouting for the death of the False Emperor—advancing toward Terra in a vast tide of fire and steel.

The Imperium, once shining at its peak, now appeared fragile… even doomed.

---

Witnessing the collapse of humanity's greatest empire—

Even the Aeldari and many other xenos species panicked.

In an age where Daemons poured out of the Warp and Orks rampaged unchecked, the dwindling remnant races desperately required a massive power to draw the galaxy's hostility away from them.

The Imperium had been the perfect lightning rod:

huge

strong

chaotic

impossible to kill, yet too clumsy to grow stronger quickly

If the Imperium fell, all those smaller races would suddenly need to face the galaxy's predators alone.

That would be the end of them.

Thus, despite hating humanity, many xenos races reluctantly began supplying the Imperium with weapons, resources, or intelligence.

For them, humanity's survival was the price of their own.

---

But where some saw the Imperium as a needed shield—others saw opportunity.

Among them was a shadowy faction known simply as the Cult.

Long ago, the Aeldari's decadence birthed the Eye of Terror—merging the Warp with realspace, unleashing Daemons, and plunging the galaxy into chaos.

The Cult believed that any powerful, populous civilization had the potential to repeat this disaster.

To them, a thriving Imperium was a ticking time bomb.

And so, under the belief that "if humanity dies, everyone else benefits," the Cult began sabotaging the galaxy on a grand scale—

Even playing a direct role in the corruption of several Astartes Legions.

...

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