Chapter 53 Meeting Marneus Calgar

The automated construction of the Obsidian Nether Highway progressed with hyper-efficient, terrifying speed. At this rate, the tunnel would seamlessly connect to the Macragge System in a matter of months.

After meticulously inspecting the mob grinders and the automated golem patrol factories inside the tunnel to ensure peak operational efficiency, Vane was satisfied.

He gathered Sanguinius and the Imperial entourage, boarded the Red Tear, and set a direct course for Macragge.

Vane’s primary Campaign Quest was clear: ‘Recover All Loyalist Primarchs and Restore the Era of the Primarchs’.

Sanguinius was officially secured. There were eight left.

Lion El’Jonson: Currently missing in action. (According to the lore, the Emperor would eventually dump him back into realspace.)

Jaghatai Khan: Missing in action. (Highly suspected to be street-racing Drukhari in the Webway.)

Leman Russ: Missing in action. (Highly suspected to be roaming the absolute deepest depths of the Warp, desperately searching for a literal ‘Tree of Life’ to heal the Emperor.)

Rogal Dorn: Currently missing in action. (His severed hand was sitting in a stasis-vault aboard the Phalanx, but the rest of him was unaccounted for.)

Ferrus Manus: Currently deeply engaged in a headless queue with King Louis XVI. (Needed to figure out a specific mechanical workaround for his resurrection.)

Vulkan: Missing in action. (According to Salamander lore, gathering all nine of his ancient artifacts would trigger his respawn.)

Corvus Corax: Currently spawn-camping Lorgar’s citadel in the Warp, absolutely determined to make his traitorous brother pay.

Out of all the remaining Primarchs, the ‘ICU God of War’, Roboute Guilliman, was mathematically the easiest to locate.

The Lord of Ultramar had been poisoned by Fulgrim’s daemonic blade ten thousand years ago and had been permanently lying in an ICU stasis-bed ever since.

The Great Angel had already accepted the Halo of the End, officially becoming Vane’s subordinate deity, and currently owed him a staggering fifty billion star systems in cosmic debt.

Vane fully intended to force Guilliman to accept an Apotheosis as well.

He would saddle Guilliman with an equally catastrophic cosmic debt, granting Vane the absolute legal right to aggressively exploit him for free administrative labor.

Guilliman’s logistical and administrative stats were completely maxed out. Once Vane achieved 100% completion in the Warhammer dimension and returned to the Minecraft Hub, he planned to appoint Guilliman as the CEO of his future Inter-Dimensional Megamall.

Vane had no intention of permanently residing in the grimdark Warhammer universe. Once he secured maximum administrative privileges, he would take his most useful, newly-acquired subordinates and return to the Infinite Hub. From there, he would select new dimensions to drop his avatar into and conquer.

Every dimension he successfully conquered would be permanently linked to the Minecraft Hub via Cross-Dimensional Nether Portals.

Eventually, the Minecraft Hub would evolve into the absolute, centralized nexus connecting infinite conquered realities.

Once enough dimensions were linked, Vane planned to construct a colossal, inter-dimensional megamall to aggressively monopolize trade and exploit the inhabitants of every connected universe.

He honestly didn’t even know why he wanted to aggressively exploit infinite dimensions; he just felt an overwhelmingly strong, primal urge to act like an evil capitalist overlord.

–

With Sanguinius providing absolute divine warding, and the God-Emperor aggressively running interference in the background, the Red Tear’s transit through the Immaterium was impossibly smooth. There wasn’t a single microsecond of turbulence.

The fleet casually ignored the apocalyptic Warp storms surrounding the Great Rift, drawing a perfectly straight line from the Cryptus System directly to Macragge, refusing to take a single detour.

Watching this, the Four Chaos Gods ground their teeth in absolute, apoplectic fury.

They had expended astronomical cosmic effort to violently tear the Great Rift across the galaxy, and this Outer God was casually ignoring it!

By the time the Red Tear arrived on the absolute outer edge of the Macragge System, the entire sector was already engulfed in a catastrophic, full-scale war against Chaos.

Driven by the frantic decrees of the Dark Gods, fragmented Chaos warbands from across the galaxy were aggressively converging on Macragge, absolutely determined to prevent Guilliman’s resurrection at all costs.

The Imperial survivors from Cadia—led by Archmagos Cawl and Living Saint Celestine—and their Ynnari escorts had just arrived at the planet Laphis, located on the absolute outer rim of the Macragge System.

Laphis was currently garrisoned by the Ultramarines’ 3rd Company, famously known as the ‘Scourge of the Xenos’.

The 3rd Company had immediately transmitted a high-priority encrypted vox-cast to Chapter Master Marneus Calgar, informing him of the Archmagos and the Living Saint’s arrival, and had requisitioned a rapid-strike vessel to escort them directly to Macragge.

“Cawl and the Ynnari are moving that slowly?”

Eavesdropping on the encrypted vox-traffic between Dante and the Ultramarines, Vane was genuinely surprised to learn Guilliman was still in stasis.

Cadia had shattered weeks ago. According to the original lore timeline, the moment Cawl and the survivors escaped Abaddon via the Webway, they should have beelined straight for Macragge, utilized the Armor of Fate and Ynnead’s death-magic, and immediately awakened Guilliman.

Yet, Vane had already managed to fully terraform Baal and successfully resurrect and ascend Sanguinius, and Guilliman was somehow still lying in bed.

“Is the timeline lagging because my intervention introduced a massive butterfly effect?”

Vane concluded that his casual reality-breaking had violently disrupted the established threads of fate across the entire galaxy. After all, in the original script, Sanguinius absolutely did not resurrect, let alone ascend to true godhood.

“Tell the Ultramarines to immediately schedule a formal audi—you know what, never mind. That’s too slow. I’ll just do it myself.”

Vane originally planned to have Dante pressure the Ultramarines into scheduling an immediate diplomatic summit with Marneus Calgar.

But honestly, bureaucratic diplomacy took way too long. He could just bypass the waiting room entirely.

Vane pulled a stack of Obsidian blocks and a Warp-stone from his inventory and rapidly constructed a Nether Portal linking directly to the precise coordinates of Macragge’s primary fortress.

“Forefather, please. Allow me to step through first.”

Just as Vane was about to step through the purple vortex, Sanguinius suddenly blocked his path.

“Why?” Vane looked confused.

“As the ancestor of humanity, if you simply casually stroll through a portal unannounced, it completely undermines your majestic gravitas,” Sanguinius explained smoothly.

“It is optimal for me to deploy first. Dante and I will announce your arrival to the Ultramarines. A dramatic, highly anticipated entrance is absolutely necessary to highlight your status.”

Hearing this, Vane’s eyes instantly lit up. That actually sounds incredibly cool.

“Your logic is absolutely flawless. Go ahead, you take point.”

“As you command, Forefather. Please wait patiently. The absolute microsecond I loudly declare your titles to the room, you step through the portal.”

With that, Sanguinius confidently strode into the purple vortex.

—

Meanwhile, inside the Fortress of Hera on Macragge.

Marneus Calgar and the High Command of the Ultramarines were currently holding a tense strategic briefing when a swirling, purple-black portal violently tore open directly in the center of the command hall.

Every single Ultramarine instantly tensed, immediately assuming it was a catastrophic daemonic incursion.

The microsecond a towering figure stepped out of the portal, a dozen heavy bolters and plasma incinerators aggressively opened fire.

Sanguinius casually raised a hand. He effortlessly projected a wave of divine conceptual energy that instantly transmuted the incoming mass-reactive bolter shells into falling flower petals, and neutralized the searing plasma beams into a gentle, refreshing breeze.

“Cease your fire, heroes of the Imperium! I am Sanguinius! The Ninth Son of the Emperor, the Angel of Final Judgment, the Lord of the Blood Angels, and the absolute symbol of Eternity and Purity!”

The Great Angel’s voice echoed with undeniable, divine resonance, echoing directly into the minds of Calgar, Cawl, Celestine, and the Ynnari delegation, leaving them completely, profoundly stunned.

Sanguinius is resurrected?!

“It… it truly is Sanguinius. He is the one who ascended.”

“How is this possible?! How could humanity possibly seize the absolute authority of the God of the Dead?!”

Eldrad, Yvraine, and the Aeldari delegation stared at the Primarch in absolute, visceral horror.

As Farseers, they had already been informed by the Laughing God that a human had achieved Apotheosis on Baal.

Several Farseers had actually hypothesized it might be Sanguinius, but Yvraine had immediately, aggressively shot the theory down.

The Ynnari had paid an apocalyptic, civilization-crippling price just to secure a microscopic fraction of Ynnead’s death-magic.

But now, the living, breathing proof was standing right in front of them.

“Sanguinius is permanently dead! You cannot possibly be the Great Angel! This is an elaborate, highly complex conspiracy of Chaos! Reveal your true, daemonic form, enemy!”

“We will absolutely not be deceived by your Warp-sorcery!”

Inquisitor Greyfax aggressively stepped forward, pointing her condemnor boltgun directly at Sanguinius.

As a veteran Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus, she had investigated countless ‘miracles’ across the galaxy. Ninety-nine percent of them were elaborate, catastrophic traps set by Chaos cults.

Because of her absolute, suffocating paranoia, she barely even trusted Living Saint Celestine. She was guaranteed not to trust a miraculously resurrected Primarch who casually strolled out of a purple portal.

“The Inquisitor possesses quite an aggressive temper. You claim my Gene-Father is an illusion. I suppose you are going to declare that we are all daemonic illusions as well?”

Dante, Seth, and the Blood Angel Honor Guard aggressively stepped out of the portal, forming a heavily armed, highly intimidating perimeter behind Sanguinius.

Greyfax froze. She opened her mouth to argue, but the sheer, overwhelming presence of the Chapter Masters of the Blood violently forced the words back down her throat.

“He is truly Sanguinius,” Living Saint Celestine spoke up, her voice ringing with absolute certainty. “The God-Emperor has personally revealed the truth to my soul. The Great Angel has been miraculously restored and now wields the divine power to combat the Ruinous Powers.”

The physical arrival of Dante and the absolute, divine confirmation from the Living Saint finally shattered the tension in the room. The Ultramarines lowered their weapons, finally accepting the miraculous reality.

Marneus Calgar slowly descended from the Chapter Master’s throne, his heavily scarred, weather-beaten face trembling with profound, unadulterated emotion.

“Is it truly real? Has a true son of the Emperor actually returned to us?”

Sanguinius looked down at the sons of his brother and offered a gentle, deeply comforting smile.

“Yes. I have returned. And I have come specifically for my brother, Roboute Guilliman.”

“Upon my awakening, I was informed that he suffered a grievous wound and has been trapped in stasis for ten millennia.”

Calgar’s expression instantly darkened with profound grief. “Yes, Lord Sanguinius. He was struck down by the traitor Fulgrim’s poisoned blade. For ten thousand years, only the absolute stasis field has prevented his death.”

“We have exhausted every scientific and mystical method known to the Imperium, but we cannot heal him.”

“We bring the means to heal him!” Yvraine immediately interjected, eager to secure the diplomatic alliance. “Lord Calgar, if you simply trust us and grant us access to the stasis-tomb, we can rapidly restore the Primarch to—”

Sanguinius’s smile widened slightly, and he smoothly, effortlessly cut Yvraine off.

“There is absolutely no need for you to trouble yourselves with my brother’s resurrection. I am currently escorting an exalted entity who will personally handle Roboute’s medical treatment.”