Chapter 77 Abaddon is the Imperium's Greatest Hero

“Forefather, Guilliman hopes you can return to the Macragge’s Honour. After all, you are the Supreme Commander of this crusade.”

“Russ and Jaghatai have returned to the Imperium. Reinstating them to their positions requires your presence and authorization.”

The Lion powered down the energy field of his power sword and walked over to Vane.

“What a headache. I’m never being Supreme Commander again.”

“I can’t even enjoy a good slaughter without getting interrupted.”

Vane sighed in exasperation, pulling a Linking Book out of his inventory. The book was bound to the exact coordinates of the Macragge’s Honour’s command bridge.

The moment he activated it, Sanguinius and the Lion felt the surrounding spacetime warp around them. Before they could even process the sensation, they were standing directly on the bridge of the Macragge’s Honour.

Sensing the sudden spatial anomaly, Captain Sicarius and the Primarch’s Honor Guard instantly went on high alert. Power swords hummed to life, and bolters were racked in perfect unison. But the moment they realized it was Vane and the two Primarchs, they silently lowered their weapons, returning to their statuesque guard positions.

The bridge was in a state of absolute, frantic chaos. The captain and the command crew were drowning in tasks—not only did they have to fly the massive Gloriana-class battleship, but they also had to process an endless flood of battlefield telemetry, compile tactical reports for Guilliman at the strategium hololith, and relay his subsequent micro-managed orders back to the ground forces and the rest of the fleet.

“Forefather.”

Despite being rushed off their feet, the bridge crew still managed to pause for a split second to respectfully salute Vane the moment he appeared.

Guilliman immediately stepped away from the hololith and approached Vane.

“Forefather, please forgive me for interrupting your battle.”

“Where are Russ and Jaghatai?” Vane asked, looking around the bridge.

“I have dispatched a delegation to verify their identities. Once they are confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt, they will be escorted aboard,” Guilliman explained.

Just as he finished speaking, the Master of Vox approached to deliver an update. He reported that the two Primarchs had been positively identified and were currently en route with their retinues. They were estimated to arrive aboard the Macragge’s Honour in exactly twenty minutes.

“Alright, let’s head down to the landing bays to welcome the prodigal sons back,” Vane said, turning and walking out.

The three Primarchs exchanged helpless glances and quickly jogged to catch up with him.

—

An Overlord-class gunship, newly designed by Archmagos Cawl, touched down smoothly on the hangar deck. With a hiss of depressurizing hydraulics, the assault ramp lowered, and two massive giants stepped out into the hangar.

“Russ! Khan!”

Seeing those deeply familiar faces, Sanguinius, Guilliman, and the Lion were completely overcome with emotion and called out. They practically sprinted toward their returning brothers, their faces flushed with excitement.

“Sanguinius?!”

Ten thousand years had visibly aged Russ and the Khan, giving them a much more grizzled, veteran appearance. But the moment they laid eyes on Sanguinius, they were absolutely floored with shock.

When the Siege of Terra finally broke, they had all seen Sanguinius’s broken, lifeless body. Who could have ever imagined that after ten millennia, they would see the Great Angel alive and well?

“You have no idea how utterly devastated I was when I saw you on Terra.”

Russ’s voice was heavy with the crushing guilt of failing to reach Terra in time. When he finally arrived, all he found was his father critically wounded and bound to the Golden Throne, Malcador reduced to ash, and Sanguinius’s body beaten so brutally he was barely recognizable.

In that moment, an indescribable wave of guilt had drowned the Wolf King. It was a torment that had eaten away at his sanity for years afterward. In the dead of night, Russ would always agonize over whether reaching Terra just a day earlier could have rewritten history. Ultimately, completely broken by the weight of his guilt, he had taken his Thirteenth Great Company and abandoned Fenris, vanishing into the Warp on a desperate quest to find a way to fix it all.

That quest took ten thousand years. His ‘Wolf Pups’ had dreamed of the ‘Wolftime’ every single night, endlessly praying for his return.

“It’s all in the past, brother. Under the Forefather’s guidance, we are marching toward a brand new future,” Sanguinius said with a warm smile, gesturing to Vane.

“Forefather.”

“Forefather.”

Russ and Jaghatai bowed respectfully, studying the living legend with intense curiosity. On the gunship ride over, they had been fully briefed on the Forefather’s impossibly long list of achievements.

He had shattered Hive Fleet Leviathan and terrified the Necrons into submission. He had resurrected Sanguinius and terraformed Baal. He had obliterated a massive Chaos armada, resurrected Guilliman, and coerced the Aeldari into becoming a vassal state. He had beaten a C’tan into submission and handed it over to the Mechanicus as a tutor. And now, he was leading an Imperial crusade directly into the Webway to conquer the labyrinth dimension.

Any single one of those feats would permanently cement a mortal as a legendary Imperial saint. Yet, this one man had done all of it.

“You’re all kids to me, so I’m not going to waste time on pointless speeches, and honestly, I don’t feel like talking much anyway.”

Vane reached into his inventory and pulled out two crystalline objects: the Core of the World-Ender Wolf and the Core of the Speed God. He had obtained these cores after slaying the respective bosses in a hardcore Cataclysm modpack in the Minecraft universe.

Vane knew exactly what the Big E was playing at, and he honestly couldn’t be bothered to complain about it. The Lion, Sanguinius, and Guilliman had already assimilated divine authorities. It only made sense for the Wolf King and the Khan to get a power-up too. After all, the endgame was inevitably going to be a full-scale purge of the Warp and the eradication of the Chaos Gods. If the Imperium’s roster wasn’t stacked enough, fighting the Dark Gods would actually require effort.

Sure, Vane was fully capable of soloing the Chaos Gods, but the Warp was massive. Did they really expect him to do all the heavy lifting by himself?! If that was the case, he’d rather just let the galaxy burn.

Saving the world? Sure. Doing extra chores? Absolutely not.

Staring at the two cores hovering in Vane’s hand, radiating with absurd power, the Wolf King and the Khan only hesitated for a moment before accepting them.

On their journey back to realspace, they had already figured out exactly why their father had suddenly guided them back. The final war was beginning. The ultimate reckoning between Humanity and Chaos was about to kick off under the Forefather’s banner. This time, they absolutely could not afford to lose. The price of failure was the total extinction of the human race.

The Wolf King took the Core of the World-Ender Wolf, and Jaghatai claimed the Core of the Speed God.

To avoid accidentally blowing a hole in the Macragge’s Honour, Vane teleported the two Primarchs outside the ship before they initiated the assimilation process.

The moment Russ and the Khan fused with the cores, a terrifying anomaly erupted. The two Primarchs were violently hoisted into the void by an invisible force as apocalyptic waves of cosmic energy detonated from their bodies, generating a massive shockwave. Suspended in the void of the Webway, the two Primarchs blazed like twin suns, their blinding light illuminating the pitch-black expanse of the Dark City.

Even Asdrubael Vect, cowering deep within his Spire of Thorns, could physically feel the terrifying shockwaves of raw power. The sheer magnitude of their ascension completely dwarfed the daemonic incursion caused by Yvraine’s awakening.

Every single Drukhari in Commorragh stared up at the twin suns with absolute, paralyzing despair. Even the Warp entities and daemons that had managed to bleed into the Webway following the opening of the Great Rift shrieked in unadulterated agony at the blinding light.

Down in the gladiatorial arenas, captured Astartes and Imperial Guardsmen who had been forced to fight for the Drukhari’s amusement witnessed the spectacle. Seeing their arrogant, sadistic captors absolutely pissing themselves in terror filled the Imperial prisoners with immense joy.

The return of two more Primarchs pushed the already fanatic morale of the Imperial forces into complete overdrive. In fact, many soldiers were genuinely starting to think they owed Abaddon a massive favor. If he hadn’t destroyed Cadia and ripped the galaxy in half—plunging humanity into a desperate, apocalyptic crisis—the Forefather never would have returned to save them. And because of the Forefather, all their lost and dead Primarchs were finally coming back.

If humanity actually managed to defeat all its enemies and usher in a new golden age, Abaddon the Despoiler honestly deserved the Medal of Honor.

—

Deep within the Warp, the four Chaos Gods sensed the massive ontological shifts in realspace. Even though the Webway was heavily shielded from the Immaterium, the sheer cosmic ripples generated by two Primarchs ascending to godhood still bled through.

The Chaos Gods, who had spent ten millennia treating mortals with absolute, arrogant contempt, were now seriously questioning their own reality.

Two MORE Primarchs just ascended to godhood?!

Counting the Lion, Sanguinius, and Guilliman, humanity now had five gods wielding divine authorities. And that wasn’t even counting the Anathema on the Throne, or that utterly terrifying, logic-defying Forefather!

On paper, the Imperium’s current roster could comfortably completely obliterate an alliance between any two Chaos Gods. If things kept escalating like this, it was only a matter of time before humanity kicked down the doors to the Warp and slaughtered them all.

And the most infuriating part? All of this had only started happening after Abaddon destroyed Cadia!